The only reason the Olympic Games had been postponed or canceled before today was due to war, on five occasions between the summer and winter editions. But the COVID-19 pandemic that is sweeping the planet advised to postpone the Tokyo 2020 Games until 2021, which will still retain this name despite the change of date.
Epidemiologists speak of the fight against the coronavirus as a war. In terms of Olympic history, that metaphor became a reality today.
Olympic Games in World War I
The first of the five canceled editions of the modern era Games for war reasons was the 1916 edition. The IOC had awarded the Games to Berlin in 1912, to the detriment of Stockholm, but the outbreak in 1914 of World War I raised alarm bells for Olympic leaders.
The stadium prepared in Berlin for the 1916 Games was used from 1915 as a field hospital and Germany had other priorities that put its Olympic commitments on the back burner. The IOC surrendered to evidence.
Olympic Games canceled in World War II
The next canceled Games were the two planned for 1940 in Japan, the summer ones in Tokyo and the winter ones in Sapporo. Japan gave up both in 1938, in the midst of the second Sino-Japanese war, a conflict that later became part of World War II.
The IOC then awarded the summer Games to Helsinki, which had been a finalist against Tokyo, and the winter Games first to St Moritz and then, due to a conflict with Switzerland, to Garmisch (Germany). In November 1939, these were canceled, two months after the Nazis invaded Poland, and in May 1940, those in Finland were canceled, a country that was suffering the annexationist attacks of the Soviet Union.
Despite the unstoppable development of the war, the IOC maintained its activities as much as possible, and in its 1939 Session, it awarded the hosting of the 1944 Games to Cortina (Italy) and London. The hope of resuming the Games continued until 1942, the year in which they were definitively canceled.
After World War II, St Moritz (Switzerland) and London resumed the organization of the Games, which was never interrupted again until today. The XXXII Olympiad will end without Games.
(With information from EFE)