After the International Olympic Committee (ICO) set a four-week deadline for confirming the date of the next Olympic Games, they have confirmed that they will not take place this summer.
The exact dates haven’t yet been set, but it has been confirmed that the competition won’t be held any later than next summer so it’ll only be a 12-month delay at most. The Olympic Games were due to start on July 24, but have been moved to 2021.
“The IOC President and the prime minister of Japan have concluded that the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo 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,” a statement released said.
This came after various countries had already said they wouldn’t attend if the Games were held this year.
Since the opening of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, the international sports competition has only been cancelled three times.
– Once during World War I. – The 1916 Olympics were supposed to be hosted by the German Empire, which had built an impressive 30,000-seat stadium in Berlin for the event. But with the outbreak of war in 1914, and the eventual involvement of so many nations who sent athletes to the Olympics, the 1916 games were cancelled.
– Twice during World War II. – The 1940 summer and winter Olympics were both scheduled to be held in Japan, the first non-Western country to host the games, but Japan forfeited its rights in 1937 when it went to war with China. The 1940 games were initially rebooked for Helsinki, Finland in the summer and the German town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the winter, but finally canceled in 1939 with Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
London was supposed to host the 1944 summer Olympics, but those were summarily canceled due to the ongoing war. Same for the 1944 winter games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. London eventually hosted the 1948 games, but banned German and Japanese athletes from participation.
– In 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak, which has postponed the Summer Olympic games for a year.
The Olympics weathered politically charged boycotts, two separate terrorist attacks went without being cancelled or postponed during peacetime.
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