The Tokyo Olympics is set to open July 23, 2021. Organisers of the global sporting event, which was postponed owing to the spread of COVID-19, announced this on Monday.
The Tokyo 2020 Chief Yoshiro Mori said, “The Olympics will be held from July 23 to August 8, 2021, while the Paralympics will hold between August 24 and September 5”. Mori made this announcement after an emergency teleconference meeting with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
“We agreed that the timing of the event will be in summer as originally planned, considering the coronavirus… and a certain amount of time needed for preparations, selection and qualification of athletes,” he added.
These new dates according to the IOC would afford health authorities and the organisers of the games “the maximum time to deal with the constantly changing landscape and the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics was initially planned to open on July 24 this year and run for 16 days. The re-scheduling of the event marks the first peace-time postponement of the Olympic games.
