The IOC and the organising committee on Tuesday announced the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics to 2021 after a teleconference call with Shinzo Abe.
A woman in a face mask walks past a display showing the Tokyo 2020 logo in Tokyo on March 23, 2020. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
The organisers of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 have, reportedly, decided to set up a task force to look after and resolve all the issues that have come up after the postponement of this year’s Summer Games.
Tokyo 2020 said that the Planning Task Force, which will be officially called TBD, will hold its first meeting on Thursday at its headquarters, with president Yoshiro Mori and CEO Toshiro Muto participating, Xinhua news reports.
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The most urgent issue that the task force faces is to finalise the dates and prepare the schedule of the postponed event.
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In the joint statement issued by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, the new dates were not mentioned.
However, IOC chief Thomas Bach has said that games will happen beyond 2020 but not latter than the summer of 2020.
“This is not restricted just to the summer months. All the options are on the table, before and including the summer of 2021,” Bach said in a conference call on Wednesday as quoted by PTI via AFP.
Meanwhile, despite their initial reluctance to postpone this year’s Summer Games, the IOC and the organising committee on Tuesday announced the decision to reschedule the Olympics to 2021 after holding a teleconference call with Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the other stakeholders on Tuesday.
Both Japan and the IOC were adamant to keep the Tokyo Olympics on schedule. While the IOC chief had said there was no need for a drastic decision, the Japanese PM had pledged to host the Games as scheduled and refused to declare the crisis an emergency in his country.
However, with Canada and Australia withdrawing from the Games on Monday, the pressure piled up on the authorities. Both the countries stated that it won’t be sending its contingent to Tokyo 2020 Olympics unless the tournament happens next year.
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