The International Olympic Committee has officially postponed the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, after coming to an agreement with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe that the Games “must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community.”
Abe and Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike made a proposal for a one-year delay to IOC president Thomas Bach during a conference call; Abe describes Bach as supporting the proposal. The decision comes after IOC member Dick Pound framed postponement of the Olympics as a virtual certainty in light of the coronavirus disease pandemic in an interview with USA Today on Monday.