Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, confirmed that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be postponed to 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision comes after Japan asked the International Olympic Committee President, Thomas Bach, to postpone the Games.
Thomas Bach called up Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, Tokyo Governor and other officials before he agreed with the proposal.
Abe said that the postponed of the Olympic Games would be a testament to humanity’s triumph over the pandemic.
In a combined statement by the IOC and Tokyo Olympics Organizers said that both Abe and Thomas Bach expressed concern about the spread of COVID-19. The statement read, “The unprecedented and unpredictable spread of the outbreak has seen the situation in the rest of the world deteriorating. Yesterday, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating. There are more than 375,000 cases now recorded worldwide and in nearly every country, and their number is growing by the hour.”
