In the face of mounting pressure from athletes worldwide, governments and national Olympic committees amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics 2020 scheduled to be held from July 24 has been postponed to next year.
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach held a telephonic conference today after which both sides agreed on the postponement. The Olympics will now be held in the summer of 2021 instead, in Tokyo. It will, however, still be termed Tokyo Olympics 2020.
A joint statement was issued soon after by the IOC and Abe, saying: "President Bach and Prime Minister Abe expressed their shared concern about the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, and what it is doing to people’s lives and the significant impact it is having on global athletes’ preparations for the Games. The unprecedented and unpredictable spread of the outbreak has seen the situation in the rest of the world deteriorating.
“Yesterday, the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the COVID-19 pandemic is "accelerating". There are more than 375,000 cases now recorded worldwide and in nearly every country, and their number is growing by the hour. In the present circumstances and based on the information provided by the WHO today, the IOC President and the Prime Minister of Japan have concluded that the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo 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."
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Abe and Bach were joined by Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee President Mori Yoshiro, Olympics Minister Hashimoto Seiko, 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.
Japan will, no doubt, face multiple financial ramifications due to this delay but the writing on the wall was increasingly getting bolder and bigger. Abe told the Japanese Parliament on Monday that the "Olympics cannot be held under the current circumstances", indicating, for the first time, that they may have to be postponed.
Bach had, in fact, issued a statement that the IOC would take a call on the fate of Olympics in four weeks time. But he had admitted that it was difficult to hold the Olympics in a "complete way"given the prevailing circumstances.
Abe also spoke on telephone on Tuesday morning with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and said the IOC's decision to consider various options is in line with Tokyo's stance that the Games should be held in their complete form, Japanese news agency Kyodo News quoted the Japanese Foreign Ministry as saying.
Only 57 per cent of athletes have been able to qualify for the Olympics so far, partly due to cancellation of several Olympic qualifiers.
The Olympic Flame was lit in Greece behind closed doors on March 12 and arrived in Japan last Friday. It will remain in Japan till 2021 now.
