It’s a go as of now.
Thomas Bach is insisting that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will take place as scheduled starting on July 24. But there are a number of Olympic Committees globally that have told Bach, who is the president of the International Olympic Committee, that it would be so much wiser for him and the IOC delegates to shelve their plans and hold the two-week sports gathering at another time, maybe in 2021 or 2022 when coronavirus drug treatments and vaccines are available. On Friday, United States Track and Field along with USA Swimming formally told the United States Olympic Committee that the two groups really don’t want to go to Japan in the middle of a pandemic. On Saturday, The Brazilian Olympic Committee released a statement urging that the Tokyo Games should be postponed until 2021 because of health concerns or rising COVID-19 infection rates.
In Norway, the Olympic Committee statement was simple. “Our clear recommendation is that the Olympic Games in Tokyo shall not take place before the COVID-19 situation is under firm control on a global scale.” Japan does not want to delay the Olympics and the IOC wants the Olympics to start on time. Bach told the New York Times on Thursday, “We are affected by this crisis like everyone else and we are concerned like everybody else. We are not living in a bubble or on another planet. We are in the middle of our societies.” But the IOC is plowing ahead and contends that the IOC is ahead of other sports leagues. “They (other leagues) are even more optimistic than we are, because most of them have postponed their events until April or the end of May. We are talking about the end of July,” Japan’s Deputy Minister Taro Aso on Wednesday conceded that having a July Olympics would not make sense without athletes’ support.
