Due to the coronavirus outbreak, you don’t have to worry about missing the Olympic Games.
This year’s Tokyo Olympic Games have been re-scheduled, after first being postponed. The Olympics are now set to take place in July and August 2021. Summer Games will be held July 23, 2021 to Aug. 8, 2021 and the Paralympic Games will run Aug. 24th, 2021 to Sept. 5, 2021.
This decision was made based on protecting both the athletes and everyone involved to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. A conference call consisting of IOC president Thomas Bach, Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko, Olympic and Paralympic Minister Hashimoto Seiko, and Tokyo 2020 President Mori Yoshiro allowed the decision to take place. Despite not being on the call, the Japanese Prime Minister has stressed for the games to take place no later than summer 2021.
According to organizers, this postponement gives health authorities and everyone involved more than enough time to deal with the constant changes of the coronavirus outbreak. Even though these new dates are going to protect the people of the Olympic Games, this is expected to hurt the Japanese economy in 2020. It forecasts the games would create $6.4 billion in consumer demand and canceling them would dent the overall economy by $74 billion.
With the Coronavirus pandemic restricting travel for many athletes, some athletes have already qualified for the Olympics and will not have to re-qualify for Tokyo 2021. “It has previously been confirmed that all athletes already qualified and quota places already assigned for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 will remain unchanged. This is a result of the fact that these Olympic Games Tokyo, in agreement with Japan, will remain the Games of the XXXII Olympiad,” the IOC explained.
This is the first time in modern Olympic history that a pandemic has interrupted and suspended the games.
As far as coronavirus cases, Japan has 1,884 confirmed occurrences of the COVID-19 with 1,408 remaining active.