The rescheduled Tokyo Olympics will now be held in 2021, running from July 23 through Aug. 8.
The Paralympic Games will start on Aug. 24 of the very same year and run through Sept. 5.
The International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee, and other organizers revealed the changes Monday.
“With this announcement, I am confident that, working together with the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Japanese Government, and all our stakeholders, we can master this unprecedented challenge,” IOC president Thomas Bach stated. “Mankind currently discovers itself in a dark tunnel. These Olympic Games, Tokyo 2020, can be a light at the end of this tunnel.”
On March 24 – in the middle of the increasing global COVID-19 pandemic – the IOC ended on hosting the event as at first prepared this summer At the time, the organizers enforced a required to reschedule the games “to a date beyond 2020 however not behind summer 2021.”
The IOC noted in Monday’s release 3 factors for its choice of the new dates:
1. To protect the health of the professional athletes and everybody included, and to support the containment of the COVID-19 infection.
2. To ensure the interests of the professional athletes and of Olympic sport.
3. The global international sports calendar.
The event will still be entitled Tokyo 2020 regardless of occurring in 2021 All professional athletes who have actually currently certified to contend will stay competent, and all quota locations currently appointed will stay the same.