A day after USA TODAY Sports broke the news that the 2020 Summer Olympics would be postponed because of the global coronavirus pandemic, it became official.
The president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, and Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, announced Tuesday in a joint statement that the 2020 Tokyo Games — which were originally scheduled to begin July 24 — will be postponed.
They said the Olympics “must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021,” but they’ll still be referred to as the 2020 Olympics.
The announcement follows increasing pressure directed at the IOC from athletes and multiple governing bodies to postpone the Olympics for health and safety reasons, along with so many uncertainties regarding COVID-19. And as Canada and Australia called for the Games to be postponed, both countries also recently said they would not send athletes to the Tokyo Olympics if they took place this summer.
Have the Olympics been canceled or postponed before?
This is the first time in Olympic history that the Games have been suspended. But they have, however, been canceled — which is still a possibility, despite the IOC and Japanese government insisting otherwise.
1916 Summer Olympics: Canceled because of World War I.
1940 Summer and Winter Olympics: Canceled because of World War II. This was also back when both Games were still held in the same year.
1944 Summer and Winter Olympics: Canceled because of World War II.
And now, we can add the 2020 Tokyo Games to the short list of Olympics that didn’t take place as originally scheduled.
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