Member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Dick Pound has revealed that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be put off to a later date due to the coronavirus pandemic, USA Today quoted him as saying, Trend reports citing TASS.
"On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided," the IOC member stressed. "The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know. It will come in stages. We will postpone this and begin to deal with all the ramifications of moving this, which are immense." USA Today notes that the Games are likely to be postponed to 2021.
On February 25, Pound was one of the first officials to put forward the idea that the Olympics could be rescheduled. He then stressed that the decision should be made before end of May. Later, the IOC underlined that his remarks do not reflect the organization’s official position.
The 2020 Olympics are scheduled for July 24-August 9. On Monday, head of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee Yoshiro Mori confidently announced that the Olympics will not be cancelled altogether, but conceded that there is a possibility that the Games will be postponed. On Sunday, IOC President Thomas Bach said that the decision to possibly postpone the Olympics will be made within four weeks.
In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in more than 150 countries, including Russia. On March 11, the WHO declared the outbreak a global pandemic.