The Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be postponed due to the Coronavirus
The statements made by Dick Pound suggesting a postponement to 2021
Sports
March 24th, 2020
March 24th, 2020
The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games will be postponed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. This is the statement released on Monday afternoon by Dick Pound, member of the International Olympic Committee. "Based on the information provided by the IOC, the delay has been decided," Pound said in a telephone interview. "The timing has not yet been determined, but the games will not start on July 24."
Pound, a 78-year-old Canadian IOC member for more than ten years, said the games will likely be moved to 2021, with details that will be worked out over the next four weeks: "There will be several phases: first we will postpone it and then we will start taking care of all the consequences of the postponement, which are enormous ". IOC spokesman Mark Adams, after being informed of Pound's comments, said that "It is the right of every IOC member to give an interpretation of the executive board's decision announced on Sunday." In that announcement, IOC President Thomas Bach indicated, for the first time, that postponing the Tokyo Games would be a possibility, explaining how impossible it would be to consider canceling.
In addition to the suspension of the Games, the spread of coronavirus has also interrupted the Olympic qualification procedures and has seriously compromised the training regimes, prompting athletes and federations all over the world to ask for their postponement.
The pressure increased over the past weekend when World Athletics, the international federation that oversees athletics, publicly asked to postpone the games. The Canadian Olympic and Paralympic committees further complicated - with good intentions - the situation on Sunday evening, announcing not to send a delegation of athletes to the Tokyo Games unless they are postponed; statements similar to those issued by the Australian, German, Brazilian and Norwegian Olympic Committee which in fact do not intend to question the health of their athletes, urging the IOC to postpone it in 2021.
It would be the first time in history - since the times of the two world wars - that the Olympics are suspended.
