Sports
Covid-19:Tokyo 2020 Olympic has been postponed
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic that was scheduled to begin on April 24 has been postponed to 2021 summer due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has confirmed that the tournament will still be called Tokyo 2020 despite it being held in 2021, and the Paralympics has also been moved to 2021.
The organisers of the Tokyo 2020 olympics and IOC has released a joint statement: “The unprecedented and unpredictable spread of the outbreak has seen the situation in the rest of the world deteriorating.
“On Monday, the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the COVID-19 pandemic is ‘accelerating’.
There are more than 375,000 cases now recorded worldwide and in nearly every country, and their number is growing by the hour.
“In the present circumstances and based on the information provided by the WHO today (Tuesday), the IOC president and the prime minister of Japan have concluded that 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.”
“The leaders agreed that the Olympic Games in Tokyo could stand as a beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times and that the Olympic flame could become the light at the end of the tunnel in which the world finds itself at present.
“Therefore, it was agreed that the Olympic flame will stay in Japan. It was also agreed that the Games will keep the name Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020.”
This will be the first time the Olympic games will be postponed to a later date, although, it has been cancelled on several occasions.
