The International Olympic Committee warns that it is too early to define Tokyo 2020 Olympics’ fate. The World Athletics chief Lord Coe urges not to make a precipitous decision, BBC reports.
Tokyo Olympics set to start in four months, so, the IOC and Japanese authorities need to wait. The coronavirus epidemic has already caused many events to be cancelled but the Tokyo Olympics’ committee has enough time to make the optimal decision.
The International Olympic Committee has said the Games could still begin on 24 July despite the COVID-19 pandemic made many changes in just a couple of months.
As Lord Coe commented on rumours on cancelling the upcoming Olympics, the people should not make a precipitous decision when we don’t have to four months out.
“If you had to ease that date, you’d have to ease it. It is possible. Anything is possible,” he added durinh the interview to the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4.
Lord was a chair of the London 2012 organising committee, so, he is a rather experienced person when it is about the sports events of the global scale: “Events are changing by the hour but it is not a decision that has to be made at the moment.
“The temperature in the room with the IOC is, nobody is saying we’re going to the Games come what may,” the World Athletics chief
Meanwhile, the IOC says it held “constructive” talks with athlete representatives about the COVID-19 crisis earlier this week. In fact, the previous 2016 OG in Brazil also were problematic due to Zika virus outbreak. Many athletes preferred to skip Brazil 2016 OG, but not all of them.
While Tokyo 2020 organisers received the Olympic flame in a scaled-down ceremony in Athens’ Panathenaic Stadium, IOC President Thomas Bach admitted that “we still have more than four months to go” until Tokyo 2020.
The flame was then transferred into a small holder to travel to Japan on a special aircraft named ‘Tokyo 2020 Go.’
In a video message, Tokyo 2020 organising chief Yoshiro Mori expressed hope the flame’s arrival would help “shake off the dark clouds hanging over the world”.
“I know that Tokyo have done exactly the same and actually the financial stakes are much higher for the host city than they are for the IOC,” Bach added.
