IOC, Japan Postpone Tokyo Olympics
TOKYO (Dispatches) — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee have bowed to a groundswell of resistance — from athletes, from sports federations, from national Olympic committees, from health experts — and formally postponed the Games, which had been scheduled to begin in late July, until 2021.
The decision brought both a sense of relief and impending chaos to international sports.
Abe broke the news after a phone call with Bach, when complaints that the IOC was not moving quickly enough to adjust to the coronavirus pandemic became too loud to ignore.
The decision — which organizers in Japan resisted the longest, according to people involved with the process — became all but inevitable after the national Olympic committee in Canada announced on Sunday that it was withdrawing from the Games, and Australia’s committee told its athletes that it was not possible to train under the widespread restrictions in place to control the virus. Brazil and Germany, too, called for postponing the Games. And the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, after initially declining to take a stand, joined the fray Monday night, urging the IOC to postpone.
In announcing the decision, Abe said that he had asked Bach for a one-year delay and that Bach had "agreed 100 percent.”
It was an extraordinary turnabout: The Olympics have been canceled only because of world wars, in 1916, 1940 and 1944, and have carried on even in the tense climate after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where 17 people died after the quarters of the Israeli team were stormed by Palestinian terrorists.
Bach said the situation had become untenable in recent days as the World Health Organization described the acceleration of the virus in Africa to Olympic leaders. That forced the IOC to shift its focus from whether Japan could be safe at the start of the Games to what was immediately happening in various other countries.
"We had growing confidence in the developments in Japan,” Bach said in a conference call with journalists. "In 4½ months, these safe conditions could be offered. Then we had this big wave coming from the rest of the world.”
The decision brought both a sense of relief and impending chaos to international sports.
Abe broke the news after a phone call with Bach, when complaints that the IOC was not moving quickly enough to adjust to the coronavirus pandemic became too loud to ignore.
The decision — which organizers in Japan resisted the longest, according to people involved with the process — became all but inevitable after the national Olympic committee in Canada announced on Sunday that it was withdrawing from the Games, and Australia’s committee told its athletes that it was not possible to train under the widespread restrictions in place to control the virus. Brazil and Germany, too, called for postponing the Games. And the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, after initially declining to take a stand, joined the fray Monday night, urging the IOC to postpone.
In announcing the decision, Abe said that he had asked Bach for a one-year delay and that Bach had "agreed 100 percent.”
It was an extraordinary turnabout: The Olympics have been canceled only because of world wars, in 1916, 1940 and 1944, and have carried on even in the tense climate after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where 17 people died after the quarters of the Israeli team were stormed by Palestinian terrorists.
Bach said the situation had become untenable in recent days as the World Health Organization described the acceleration of the virus in Africa to Olympic leaders. That forced the IOC to shift its focus from whether Japan could be safe at the start of the Games to what was immediately happening in various other countries.
"We had growing confidence in the developments in Japan,” Bach said in a conference call with journalists. "In 4½ months, these safe conditions could be offered. Then we had this big wave coming from the rest of the world.”