Olympics postponed; new dates set

3/30/20 Update:

The new dates for the 2020 Olympics have officially been determined.

The games will take place on July 23, 2021 and last until August 8, 2021. Athletes who have already qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will retain their qualification in 2021.

This was definitely the smart thing to do as it will now I’ll give athletes enough time to qualify without putting lives at risk. Also, by the time the games begin in late summer 2021, we will hopefully have a widespread use of a vaccine which will allow people to congregate together and worry less about transmitting disease.

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3/24/20 Original post:

The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic games have been postponed. The exact dates are still to be determined but officials are saying that at the latest they will be postponed until 2021. 

It’s still not “official official” yet but this looks like the most likely outcome.

Organizing Committee president Yoshiro Mori mentioned possible postponement scenarios of one month, three months, five months, and one year.

One month seems way too short given the current status that the globes in. 

It would be very odd to me if they postponed by 3 to 5 months and essentially turned the summer games into the winter games.

I’m sure there are lots of indoor venues so it wouldn’t completely matter but it would be very strange for those outdoor competitions to be taking place in cold environments particularly for sports like track and field. Also that type of postponement would be a nightmare for TV competition.

I think the one-year postponement is the most likely scenario since it will retain competition in the summer months and give plenty of time to prepare on how to move past this crisis and host a major sporting event. 

Altering the Olympic schedule is something that is extremely rare.

We have seen the modern Olympic Games canceled a couple of times due to wars such as World War I and World War II but we have never seen Olympic games postponed. It is truly a sign of the crazy times that we are in right now.

I think it was absolutely the right move though.

Some countries like Canada and Australia had already stated they would not send athletes to the games this summer and many other countries were voicing support for postponing the games.

A big issue was qualifying for the games since a lot of spots have still not been filled. It takes a lot to put together qualification meets and at this point many people would be put at risk in those situations.

So even if things had quieted down by the end of July it still would not have been practical to get athletes qualified and ready for the games since all of those things would need to be happening now. 

The postponement is likely to cost Japan billions of dollars and will be a HUGE logistical undertaking but in the end will be a better choice than out right canceling the games. And like a lot of things, I think there will be a pent up demand for the Olympics just because people will be anticipating the return to normalcy in all things in their life.

H/T