2021 Summer Olympics
According to the Kyodo news agency, Toshihiro Nikai, the secretary general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic party, said in a television interview on Thursday that cancelling this year's Olympic Games could be an option if Covid-19 infections continue to rise.
It is the first time that a senior government figure has admitted on the record that the Tokyo competition might not go ahead should the pandemic situation in Japan intensify.
North Korea will not attend the upcoming Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the North's Olympic Committee announced, saying it "decided not to participate in the 32nd Olympic Games during the general assembly to protect our athletes from the global health crisis situation related to the coronavirus as proposed by committee members."
The country, which has a history of no transparency, claims that it has not had any confirmed cases nor deaths related to Covid-19.
Thomas Bach is reelected as president of the International Olympic Committee. The German lawyer was unopposed and won the vote 93-1, with four members abstaining.
Bach said Tokyo was "the best prepared Olympic city ever" and reiterated that the Games would open July 23.
He also signed future Olympic hosts Paris and Los Angeles, while Brisbane, Australia, is now being fast-tracked for 2032 -- a move aimed at avoiding expensive campaigns and allegations of vote-buying.
After his apology for sexist remarks failed to quell domestic and overseas outrage, Yoshiro Mori resigned his position as the president of the Tokyo Olympics Organising Committee.
Last week, Mori sparked international outrage by saying, "Board meetings with women take too long because they talk too much." The 83-year-old former prime minister of Japan later apologized, but by then, the damage had been done.
Yoshiro Mori, the head of the Tokyo Olympics organising committee, said last Wednesday that women talk too much and that meetings with many female board directors would "take a lot of time". Around 440 Games volunteers have quit in response to Mori's comments.
On Tuesday, the IOC added the remarks were "in contradiction" to its "commitments and the reforms of its Olympic Agenda 2020" - though it did not mention any further action against Mr Mori.
"Besides Mr Mori's apology, the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee also considers his comment to be inappropriate and has reaffirmed its commitment to gender equality," the IOC said.
Yuriko Koike, Tokyo’s governor, stated it might be necessary to a organise a “simplified” Olympics in 2021 due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"We will move ahead with the items that should be streamlined and simplified,'' Koike said, without giving any additional details on the possible downsizing.
The Yomiuri newspaper reported that organisers are considering options as mandatory Covid-19 testing and having fewer spectators in the events.
The Brazilian Olympic Committee (BOC) will send a delegation of about 200 athletes, divided into groups from July to December, for training in Europe.
The entity intends to accelerate back to training safely during the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil.
"For the BOC it is worrying to see our athletes without training conditions due to the real need to maintain isolation to control the pandemic in the country. We know how important it is to win the battle against the coronavirus, at the same time that we work for the Brazil Team to be on an equal footing with its main opponents", says the vice president of BOC, Marco Antônio La Porta Jr.
It will be difficult for Tokyo to host the Olympic Games next year unless there is an effective vaccine against the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19, Yoshitake Yokokura, the head of the Japan Medical Association (JMA) said Tuesday.
Japan and the International Olympic Committee agreed to postpone the Tokyo Games until July 23, 2021, because of the coronavirus pandemic. Japan is under a month-long state of emergency amid a rapid increase of infections across the country.
The president of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee Yoshiro Mori states there would be no more delays: “No, in that situation, it will be canceled,” he said. “In the past, when there were such problems, like wartime, it has been canceled. This time, we are fighting an invisible enemy.”.
After talks with IOC President Thomas Bach, the prime minister of Japan, Shinzō Abe announced the postponement of the Summer Olympic games to 2021.
According to IOC member Richard Pound the committee has decided to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games to 2021 and will announce its decision soon. Neither IOC nor the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee has announced a decision or replied to Pounds comment.