What most people could foresee happening is now official: the organisers of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games have decided to have a one-year postponement of the event because of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had agreed to the delay.
“I proposed to postpone for about a year and [IOC] president Thomas Bach responded with 100% agreement,” Abe said.
The 2020 Olympics were set to run from 24 July to 9 August.
“This is the first time an Olympic Games have been postponed – it has been cancelled in war time, but never postponed,” said BBC sports news reporter Alex Capstick.
“At the moment they are saying they want to hold it in the summer of 2021. It is a huge logistical challenge and problem to do that – it is not easy to postpone a Games.
“Is the delay long enough? We just do not know at this stage.”
The country’s Olympics minister, Seiko Hashimoto, said the Olympics would not be delayed beyond summer 2021 and the decision should be a relief for athletes who did not know if they were competing soon or not.
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