{"id":59337,"date":"2026-07-16T14:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/59337\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T14:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:45:07","slug":"coronavirus-could-cancel-2020-tokyo-olympic-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/59337\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus Could Cancel 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The longest-serving member of the International Olympic Committee says the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo<\/a> in July could be canceled if the coronavirus<\/a> outbreak shows no sign of dissipating.<\/p>\n

Former Canadian swimming champion Dick Pound, who has been on the IOC since 1978, says organizers have a three-month window \u2013 or less \u2013 to make a decision about the fate of the Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn and around that time (May), I\u2019d say folks are going to have to ask: \u2018Is this under sufficient control that we can be confident about going to Tokyo or not?\u2019\u201d he said in an coronavirus<\/a>-tokyo-games-ioc-member-says-more-likely-to-cancel-than-move.html\u201d target=\u201d_blank\u201d rel=\u201dnofollow noopener noreferrer\u201d>exclusive interview with The Associated Press. \u201cA lot of things have to start happening. You\u2019ve got to start ramping up your security, your food, the Olympic Village, the hotels. The media folks will be in there building their studios.\u201d<\/p>\n

If it comes to that, coronavirus<\/a>.html\u201d target=\u201d_self\u201d rel=\u201dnofollow noopener noreferrer\u201d>if the virus is still as potent in the spring, Pound said the IOC and organizers would likely have no choice but to cancel outright.<\/p>\n

Postponing the Games to a date other than the July 24 start or moving the event to another city \u2013 even a city that has hosted the magnitude of something like the Olympics before \u2013 is likely out of the question.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just don\u2019t postpone something on the size and scale of the Olympics,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s so many moving parts, so many countries and different seasons, and competitive seasons, and television seasons. You can\u2019t just say, `We\u2019ll do it in October.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

And moving to another city is difficult \u201cbecause there are few places in the world that could think of gearing up facilities in that short time to put something on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

If the IOC decides the Games cannot go forward as scheduled in Tokyo, \u201cyou\u2019re probably looking at a cancellation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Japan, awarded the 2020 Games back in 2014, is officially spending $12.6 billion on the Olympics.<\/p>\n

The coronavirus<\/a> outbreak that began in China two months ago has infected more than 80,000 people and killed more than 2,700. Most of the cases and the deaths have been in China, but the virus has spread globally<\/a> sparking fears of a pandemic.<\/p>\n

An Olympics has not been canceled in 76 years. The only times organizers have called off the Games were in 1916 due to World War I and in 1940 and \u201944 due to World War II.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The longest-serving member of the International Olympic Committee says the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo in July could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[775,8,173,52,501],"class_list":["post-59337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tokyo","tag-breaking","tag-japan","tag-news","tag-tokyo","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}