A former official of the London 2012 Olympics said that the Tokyo Olympics will likely be postponed again amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Games scheduled to take place in July last year in Tokyo was deferred to this summer.
The former Olympics’ official told the BBC that the organizers should now be making plans for a cancellation. Tokyo is currently in a state of emergency due to a surge in coronavirus cases. The Japanese capital has been reporting more than a thousand coronavirus cases daily.
The official said that it is not just the cases in Tokyo but infections in all the competing countries. He told the BBC that it will be a challenge to have enough competitors and countries to visit Japan to make it really viable games.
Earlier this month, the Japanese Prime Minister said that the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will take place this summer despite public concerns over increasing cases of coronavirus.
According to the BBC, a poll by the Japanese national broadcaster NHK showed that the majority of Japanese public opposed holding the Games in 2021, favouring a delay or cancellation of the event.
More than 11,000 athletes from around 200 countries were scheduled to take part in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Bhutan has also earned a spot in the 2020 Games in Archery.
Since the opening of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, it has only been cancelled three times but never postponed: once during World War I (1916) and twice during World War II (1940, 1944). However, the pandemic has forced the International Olympic Committee to postpone the event last year.
Phub Gyem
