After weeks of public questioning and outcry, senior IOC official Dick Pound confirmed to USA TODAY Sports that the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games would be postponed.
“On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” Pound told USA TODAY. “The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.”
The decision to postpone the Games, perhaps until 2021, has started to feel like a forgone conclusion, but it’s ridiculous that the IOC waited until countries started dropping out en masse to announce the decision. For weeks, athletes and governing bodies of sports have made it clear that holding the Games as scheduled would be a disaster for the competitors and for the greater public health. USA Swimming and USA Track and Field had already called for the Games to be postponed, and by early Monday morning, Canada, Australia and even the home country Japan had expressed reservations about having their athletes compete.
For the athletes and organizers who worked tirelessly to make the Games happen, this is a crushing blow, but one that can’t be avoided. What’s shocking is the level of public outcry it took for the IOC to finally act. Health experts have continually warned that holding the Olympics too soon would risk spreading the coronavirus more. Even now, countries like Italy and Iran are crumbling under the weight of lives lost. In the US, the worst is still yet to come.
What has slowly become more and more clear over the past month is that in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, life will not go on as normal. All large gatherings have been banned across many cities in America. Professional sports remain on an indefinite hiatus, and shelter in place orders have hit many cities.
These are extraordinary times and in the face of all these challenges it’s easy to see which institutions are stepping up to make he difficult decisions that cost money but save lives, and which ones are being dragged there, kicking and screaming. According to USA TODAY’s Rachel Axon, as late as last week the IOC had insisted that the Games would go on as normal, despite overwhelming evidence that holding an international supporting event during a worldwide pandemic would’ve been nothing short of criminally negligent.
The IOC could have saved athletes a lot of needless stress and worry by coming to this inevitable conclusion weeks ago. Instead, they waited for others to make the decision for them. For weeks it looked like the IOC and the Japanese Olympic Committee were going to put profit over people and public health. The decision to postpone the Olympics couldn’t have been more obvious. The only question is why it took so long.
