This archive report was first published on 6 June 2020.
Published on June 6, 2020, by AFP in Brussels.
Senior Olympic official Pierre-Olivier Beckers has confirmed that the Tokyo Olympics will either take place in 2021 or not at all, citing the enormous costs and thousands of people involved in the event.
Beckers, who heads the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) coordinating commission for the 2024 Games, emphasized the importance of the traditional sporting calendar emerging from its COVID-19 lockdown before allowing major sporting events like the Olympics to be staged.
"We are convinced that the Games will take place in 2021 or they won't take place," Beckers told Belgian newspaper L'Avenir. "It's unthinkable to keep such a project on the go for any longer considering the enormous costs and all the thousands of people involved."
Beckers also expressed optimism over the staging of the Games, rejecting any notion that it would be held behind closed doors. He stated that a final decision on Tokyo would be taken in the spring if questions over the global health crisis persist.
Beckers' comments come after the IOC and Japan announced that the Tokyo Olympics would be postponed by one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was originally scheduled to take place in July 2020 but was pushed back to July 2021.
