Coronavirus - Missing the Olympics, next year

The two leaders talked to each other on Tuesday, citing the unpredictable situation caused by the coronavirus epidemic and the latest information from the World Health Organization (WHO), in favor of postponing the games to protect the health of athletes and all participants.

Mori Josiro, Head of the Organizing Committee, Hasimoto Szeiko, Minister for the Olympics, Koike Juriko, Governor of Tokyo, and John Coates, Head of the IOC Coordinating Body, Christophe De Kepper, Director General and Christophe Dubi, Sports Director, joined the meeting.

"We asked President Bach to consider a roughly one-year postponement to allow athletes to compete in the best conditions and keep the event safe for spectators. President Bach said he agreed to this one hundred percent," he told reporters. Abe.

The IOC, which confirmed this a little later, highlights in its statement that the Olympic flame will remain in Japan and that it has also been agreed that the name will not change, with next year’s Games also being called the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

A XXXII. the Summer Olympics would have been held between July 24 and August 9 this year. According to experts, the postponement will cost Japan 670 billion yen (1.9 trillion forints).

There has been no example of procrastination in the 124-year history of modern games. There have already been cancellations, namely five times: during the First World War, the Berlin Games of 1916 were left out, then during the Second World War, the 1940 Games, originally doomed to Tokyo and then Helsinki, and the 1944 London Summer and 1940s. Sapporo and the 1944 Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo were not held.

The cancellation has not occurred now, according to previous press reports, there were three postponement scenarios, the possibility of a settlement this autumn, next summer and 2022 was raised.

In recent weeks, after a series of postponements of qualifying competitions, European and World Championships - in addition to athletes, sports federations and politicians - more and more Olympic committees have indicated that postponement would be the best solution for the Olympics due to the coronavirus epidemic. Canada was the first to announce on Sunday that it would boycott the event if the games were held at the original time.

Despite increasing pressure, the IOC’s position for a long time was that there was no need to make a hasty decision, it would be enough to decide on a possible amendment in May, and Japanese organizers also regularly took a stand to stick to the original date. However, Thomas Bach had already said on Sunday that the decision would be made within four weeks, and in response, Abe Sindzó spoke for the first time on Monday about a possible postponement. On Tuesday, the British news agency Reuters indicated that the fate of the Olympics will be decided within days. The US Olympic and Paralympic Commission (USOPC) also presumed to have played a major role in accelerating the events: it considers postponement to be the best solution. The United States is not only by far the most successful nation in the history of the modern Olympics, but it also provides more than half of the IOC’s revenue through television royalties and sponsors.

(Source: Source: sportrajongo.hu, mti / Photo: pixabay)