MIAMI, Florida -The Tokyo Olympics, which were postponed due to the global coronavirus pandemic, will be held from July 23 to August 8 in 2021, the games’ organizing committee announced.
The leaderships of the key parties came together via telephone conference on March 30 and agreed on the new schedule.
The Paralympic Games, which was also postponed, will now be held from August 24 to September 5, 2021.
In a statement, the Olympic committee said that the decision was taken based on three main considerations:
1. To protect the health of the athletes and everyone involved, and to support the containment of the COVID-19 virus.
2. To safeguard the interests of the athletes and of Olympic sport.
3. The global international sports calendar.
These new dates give the health authorities and all involved in the organisation of the Games the maximum time to deal with the constantly changing landscape and the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new dates are scheduled exactly one year after those originally planned for 2020 (Olympic Games: 24 July to 9 August 2020 and Paralympic Games: 25 August to 6 September 2020).
Following today’s decision, the IOC President said: “ With this announcement, I am confident that, working together with the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, the Japanese Government and all our stakeholders, we can master this unprecedented challenge. Humankind currently finds itself in a dark tunnel. These Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 can be a light at the end of this tunnel.”
It has previously been confirmed that all athletes already qualified and quota places already assigned for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 will remain unchanged.
