Olympic Games Postponed to 2021

This was announced in a press conference by the president of the organizing committee, Yoshiro Mori, shortly after speaking on the phone with the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach.

The new date was proposed by the organizers considering the need to provide "sufficient time for preparations" for the athletes and other parties involved, as well as preferring that the Games take place during a holiday period, according to Mori.

"Due to the situation of the coronavirus, we also believed that it was better for the Games to be held in summer," added the president of the organizing committee regarding the need to allow time for the situation to normalize.

The next Olympic Games were scheduled to begin on July 24 of this year, but on March 24 it was announced that they would be postponed due to COVID-19, which had forced the cancellation of a large part of the qualifying events, the suspension of athletes' training, and the restriction of international travel.

According to Mori's announcement, the Olympic trials will now start on July 23, 2021 and end on August 8. The Paralympic Games, on the other hand, will begin on August 24 and close on September 5.

These are the same dates that were planned for 2020, with a one-day change to coincide the opening ceremony with a Friday.

Until now, the organizers of the Olympic Games had said they would start before the end of summer 2021, but there were doubts about whether they could be moved up to the spring.