The 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, which were postponed in March due to the coronavirus, will take place next July “with or without COVID,” Olympics official shared.
“It will take place with or without COVID,” John Coates vice-president of the International Olympic Committee, said per The Japan Times in a piece published Monday. “The games will start on July 23 next year.” (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
“The Games were going to be their theme, the Reconstruction Games after the devastation of the tsunami,” he added.
Tokyo’s postponed Olympics will go ahead next year regardless of the coronavirus pandemic, IOC vice president John Coates told AFP Monday, saying they would be the “Games that conquered Covid”. #tokyoolympicshttps://t.co/B8onGWRRDh
— Firstpost Sports (@FirstpostSports) September 7, 2020
Coates continued, “Now very much these will be the Games that conquered Covid, the light at the end of the tunnel.” (RELATED: Olympic Official We’re ‘Looking At A Cancellation’ Of Tokyo Olympics If Coronavirus Isn’t Contained In Next Few Months)
The IOC official talked about the “monumental task” of putting the games on hold for a year.
A task force, made up of Japanese and IOC officials, met for the first time last week, and have started to look at all the different scenarios of what challenges the games could face in 2021.
“Their job now is to look at all the different countermeasures that will be required for the games to take place,” Coates shared.
“Some countries will have it (COVID) under control, some won’t,” he added. “We’ll have athletes therefore coming from places where it’s under control and some where it is not.”
Coates went on, “There’s 206 teams… so there’s a massive task being undertaken on the Japanese side.”
Tokyo 2020 chief executive Toshiro Muto, said that the games will happen whether a vaccine has been found or not, per the BBC.
“If a vaccine is ready, that will be a benefit, but we’re not saying we can’t hold the event without it – it’s not a precondition,” Muto explained.
As previously reported, the Olympics, which date to 1896, have only been cancelled in war time. The 1940 Olympics scheduled in Tokyo were called off because of Japan’s war with China and World War II.