LAUSANNE (Switzerland): The International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach said on Wednesday that the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics will need the commitment of all the stakeholders involved to give the athletes the assurance that their Olympic dream can still come true.
“What made us take this decision were the developments with the dynamic spreading of the coronavirus. We have, from the very beginning, communicated that we were monitoring the situation,” said Bach at a media teleconference.
There was increasing scrutiny on the IOC which had been accused of shying away from making a decision.
“We had to address this situation. Japan was very confident to go ahead. Then we saw last Sunday morning the figures from Africa, where we are obviously at the beginning of an outbreak, with many countries being affected,” added Bach.
Since the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, the only reason that a Games has been cancelled is because of the world wars.
The outbreak of World War I saw the cancellation of the 1916 Games which were slated for Berlin while World War II accounted for Sapporo (winter) and Tokyo (summer) in 1940, and Cortina d’Ampezzo (winter) and London (summer) in 1944.
“We saw the dynamic developments in South America, and in the US and other countries. And this was the moment when I called an emergency meeting of the IOC Executive Board, with the aim to open a discussion with Japan LOC about the postponement,” said the IOC president.
Before the IOC decision became official, Canada and Australia had already pulled out of the Games due to Covid-19 pandemic.
There have been three major boycotts — 1976 (Montreal), 1980 (Moscow) and Los Angeles (1984) — but none was cancelled.
US President Donald Trump has suggested postponing the Olympics for 12 months, although Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe responded by pledging his country would host the Games as planned. (Source: Olympic.org)
