The Olympic Games will retain their Tokyo 2020 brand name despite being postponed until 2021, the IOC have confirmed.
After weeks of insisting the Games would go ahead as planned this summer, despite the global coronavirus pandemic, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe confirmed on Tuesday that he and IOC president Thomas Bach had spoken on a telephone call and agreed to delay the event.
The IOC then announced in a statement that the Games would be “rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021” in order to “safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community”.
The decision came about after significant pressure from athletes and national Olympic associations, with Canada and Australia both saying they would refuse to send teams if the Games were held in July and August as scheduled.
Lockdown measures in countries affected by the Covid-19 outbreak have left many athletes unable to train and seen competitions, including key Olympic qualifiers, suspended.
