By Brian Homewood
BERN (Reuters) – The International Olympic Committee (IOC) remains fully committed to staging the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021 and is considering multiple scenarios for them to take place safely, IOC president Thomas Bach said on Wednesday.
Japan and the IOC postponed the Tokyo Games until 2021 in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, organisers have spoken of trying to simplify the event – which had been due to start on July 24 – to reduce costs and ensure athletes’ safety.
Bach said that the IOC’s coordination commission had reported “very good work in progress” and that more details would be given to a full IOC session which will take place by video conference on Friday.
“We remain fully committed to celebrating Tokyo 2020 next year in July and August,” Bach told reporters in a conference call.
“The entire IOC is following the principle we established before the postponement (in March) that the first priority is about the safety of all participants.”
“We continue to be guided by the advice of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and based on this advice we are preparing multiple scenarios,” he added. “We don’t know the health situation one year from now.”
Bach also said that the IOC had agreed with host nation Senegal to postpone the 2022 Youth Olympic Games until 2026.
(Writing by Brian Homewood; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
