Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has said that the summer Olympic Games will be postponed for a year, until 2021.
The executive board of Tokyo 2020 has scheduled a press conference on Monday that is now expected formally to announce the postponement of the games. The games were scheduled to have started on July 24.
“I proposed to postpone for about a year and (IOC) president (Thomas) Bach responded with 100% agreement,” Abe told reporters.
The IOC had previously acknowledged the growing pressure on the games, caused by the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on travel and athletes’ ability to train and participate in qualifying competition. But it had said that the definitive decision to go ahead or postpone would be made in mid-April.
However, cancellation or delay became increasingly inevitable when both Canada and Australia said that they would not participate this summer.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic committee said that the decision needed to made more speedily. It cited the enormous disruption to training and qualifying already wreaked by the virus pandemic.
