Report: Olympics to Be Postponed

STAFF REPORTS
PHOTO BY PETER SPURRIER

According to a Monday afternoon report from USA Today, International Olympic Committee Dick Pound said during an interview that the 2020 Olympics will be postponed. While there is no official announcement being made by the IOC, Pound said the decision to postpone has been made and the details are being worked out.

“On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” Pound said in a phone interview. “The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.”

Pound said he believes the IOC will announce its next steps soon.

“It will come in stages,” he said. “We will postpone this and begin to deal with all the ramifications of moving this, which are immense.”

Contacted by the newspaper for an official IOC response, spokesperson Mark Adams said, “It is the right of every IOC member to interpret the decision of the IOC executive board which was announced yesterday.” 

In that announcement, IOC President Thomas Bach said he was going to take the next four weeks to decide the fate of the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled to begin July 24. Bach has ruled out canceling the Games.

Later in the afternoon, IOC vice president and executive board member Anita DeFrantz commented to the Los Angeles Times that Pound’s comments that the Olympics had been postponed, “might be a bit premature.”

However, what is not in question is the fact that both Canada and Australia have announced that they will not send teams to Tokyo.

Read the USA Today report here.

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