It was practically inevitable. The ??? ?? ????2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, scheduled to take place this summer, have been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a conference call and concluded the games could not go on as scheduled, according to a joint statement released on Tuesday by the IOC and Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee.
The two leaders decided the games "must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community," the statement read.
Officials stressed the Olympics were not fully canceled, just moved.
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"The leaders agreed that the Olympic Games in Tokyo could stand as a beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times and that the Olympic flame could become the light at the end of the tunnel in which the world finds itself at present," the IOC statement read. "Therefore, it was agreed that the Olympic flame will stay in Japan."
The games were supposed to begin on July 24. As the coronavirus, which results in the disease officially named COVID-19, continues its rapid worldwide spread, killing nearly 15,000 to date, it seemed a foregone conclusion the Olympics would be postponed considering the stringent social distancing efforts required to keep the virus at bay.
Prominent IOC member Dick Pound first broke the news to USA Todayon Monday that the games would be postponed.