Coronavirus: Decision on the 2020 Olympics

The Olympics is an international multi-sport event celebrated as a global sports occasion by people all over the globe.

The Games are held every four years, alternating between the summer and winter games every two years in a period of four years, with the primary purpose of encouraging people for foreign visits, tourists as well as businesses and most importantly world peace through sports.

The 2020 Summer Olympics, popularly known as Tokyo 2020, is a forthcoming international multi-sport event proposed to take place from 24 July to 9 August 2020 at The New National Stadium in Tokyo, Japan. It comprises of preparatory activities in some sports commencing on 22 July 2020, and over 11,000 athletes are expected from 203 countries around the globe featuring 339 events in 33 different games encompassing 50 disciplines.

The International Olympics Committee, however, deliberated on the postponement of Tokyo 2020, due to the rapid outbreak of coronavirus around the globe and the committee gave itself four weeks to make a proper decision.

Recently, the International Olympic Committee’s executive board had a meeting due to their deliberation on postponing the 2020 Olympics.
The IOC said, “Cancellation is “not on the agenda,” but a “scaled-down” Games will also be considered.

Amid pressure mounting on IOC every day, United States joins the call, while Canada being the first country to pull out and several other countries; Brazil, Norway, Germany, and Slovenia have also supported the request for postponement of 2020 Olympics due to coronavirus.

Furthermore, former IOC board member, Dick Pound said that IOC has decided to delay the event, likely for a year, due to the virus, having known the statistics of the disease “coronavirus” to have infected more than 400,000 cases and with over 18, 000 deaths cases linked to the virus.

Moreover, the postponement of the 2020 Olympics would help to wage war against the spread of the virus by preventing significant travel, commercial and social restrictions, which in little or no way hinders the athletes, visitors to the host country and several other people from having the virus.

According to history, the Olympics have never been postponed, though they were canceled during the wars in 1916, 1940 and 1944 respectively and Major Cold Wars boycotts in 1980 and 1984.

There was a clear decision on the postponement and when the Olympics should be moved to. The International Olympic Committee finally announced the postponement of the 2020 Olympics, surrounding when the pandemic may ease. However, a one year delay of the Olympics would clash with the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, which are expected to run from 6-15 August 2021.

Amid the fall of the global sporting calendar in recent weeks, the Olympics 2020 is the last to collapse. Meanwhile, Tokyo 2020 has been postponed to when it would be more cooling.

As a result of pressure mounted on the International Olympic Committee, the Olympics 2020 has been postponed.