TOKYO — The Olympic Games have been cancelled in wartime, boycotted in the Cold War and shaken by scandal, but never before moved for a virus. On Tuesday, after a telephone call between Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe and International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, Tokyo 2020 became the first Olympics in history to be postponed in peacetime.
The decision pushes the Games to the summer of 2021, with the Paralympics to follow. In a joint statement, the IOC and the Tokyo organising committee said the event would be rescheduled “to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021”, and that the Games would keep the name Tokyo 2020 even when held a year late.
The postponement ends weeks of mounting pressure. Australia and Canada had already said they would not send athletes to a 2020 Games, and national federations from swimming to track and field had publicly asked for a delay, arguing that athletes could not train while much of the world was in lockdown.
For Japan, the cost is considerable. The country has spent years and billions of dollars preparing, and organisers must now hold together venues, volunteers and sponsorship contracts for another twelve months. The Olympic flame, which arrived from Greece only days ago, will remain in Japan as what officials called a symbol of hope.
More than 11,000 athletes from over 200 countries had been expected this July. They will now aim for a Games that, whenever it happens, will carry a meaning its planners never intended: a test of whether the world’s largest sporting gathering can outlast a pandemic.
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