Tokyo 2020 Olympics postponed

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games have been postponed until 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a conference call with the head of the International Olympic Committee.

“I proposed to postpone for about a year and [IOC] president Thomas Bach responded with 100% agreement,” said Abe

The decision also means the Tokyo Paralympic Games will be subject to a one-year delay.

A joint statement from the IOC and Tokyo 2020 organising committee read: “In the present circumstances and based on the information provided by the WHO today… 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.”

Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike, who was also part of the conference, said the games would not be cancelled, just postponed, and they would still be called “Tokyo 2020”. It was also agreed that the Olympic flame will stay in Japan.

In the 124-years of the modern Olympics, the games have never been postponed, although it has been cancelled completely three times – in 1916, 1940 and 1944 during periods of World War.

The impact

The financial impact of today’s decision is unknown. The Olympics is expected to attract more than 11,000 athletes and 500,000 international visitors and spectators.

Tokyo 2020 Olympic organisers have previously put the cost of staging the event at $12.6 billion. With the postponement, they must now consider a myriad of logistical nightmares associated with a delay, including the availability of key venues and accommodation.

The postponement will also force international sporting bodies to rearrange much of the wider sporting calendar.