The Tokyo Olympics which were supposed to begin this Summer in the capital of Japan has been postponed to next year. This decision has just been announced as the talks between Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and the International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, have ruled that due to the global pandemic, it would be in the best interests of everyone to postpone this event.
“We agreed that a postponement would be the best way to ensure that the athletes are in peak condition when they compete and to guarantee the safety of the spectators,” Abe told reporters after his conference call with Bach. The rescheduling of the Olympic games was necessary as rescheduling the games to a date beyond 2020 was in order to "safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community”, the IOC and the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee said later in a joint statement.
This was predicted earlier in the week when Canada and Australia publicly stated that they would not send their athletes to Tokyo due to the conditions of their country and the conditions of the world. The British and French governments also began to urge the International Olympic Committee to make a quick decision regarding the fate of the Olympic Games. In addition to this, the US Olympic and Paralympic committees (followed by committees from all over the world) began to demand for the rescheduling of the Olympic games as well.
Source(s):
IOC
Comments