COVID-19: Tokyo Olympics postponed to 2021

The International Olympic Committee has postponed the Summer Games that had been scheduled to begin in late July in Tokyo to 2021 over the deadly coronavirus [COVID-19] pandemic.

The prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, had proposed a one-year postponement for the games during talks with the International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach.

In announcing the decision, Abe said he had asked Thomas Bach, president of the I.O.C., for a one-year delay and he had “agreed 100 percent.”

I.O.C. leaders have acknowledged the disruption but said that a delay was the only way to ensure that athletes could train safely and the more than $10 billion the Japan has spent to prepare for the Olympics during the past seven years would not go to waste.

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