Tokyo 2020 Olympics Postponed

2020 Olympics postponed until 2021

The 2020 Olympics have been postponed and will now take place in 2021.

This was ratified after Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe and International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach held a conference call on Tuesday.

Also present during the conference call were the President of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee; Mori Yoshiro, the Olympic Minister, Hashimoto Seiko; the Governor of Tokyo, Koike Yuriko; the Chair of the IOC Coordination Commission, John Coates; IOC Director General Christophe De Kepper; and the IOC Olympic Games Executive Director, Christophe Dubi.

Pressure had been mounting on both Japan and the IOC for the games to be cancelled due to the outbreak of the corona virus pandemic.

Figures released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday, March 23, revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic is “accelerating” with more than 375,000 cases recorded worldwide and in nearly every country.

The 2020 Olympics was billed to commence on July 24 and end on August 9 but it will not take place in 2021.

A statement from the IOC and Tokyo 2020 organizing committee read,

“”The IOC president and the Prime Minister of Japan have concluded that the Games … must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community,”.

The IOC had stated that a four-week was been mulled over by the body to consider delaying the Games but mounting pressure from a host of Olympic committees and athletes demanding a quicker decision.  

On Sunday, Canada withdrew announced that it would not take part in the Games while USA Track and Field, athletics’ US governing body, had also called for a postponement.  

This is the first time that the Olympics will be delayed in its 124-year modern history.

Three editions of the Games in 1916, 1940 and 1944 were however cancelled because of World War One and World War Two.  

It will also be recalled that major Cold War boycotts disrupted the Moscow and Los Angeles summer Games in 1980 and 1984.