Mirror - 23 March 2020 - By James Whaling
International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound says the Tokyo Olympics will be postponed - likely until the summer of 2021.
The IOC have come under increasing pressure to postpone the Games, currently scheduled to run between July 24 and August 9.
Athletes around the world have called for a delay with training programmes disrupted due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
And Canadian Pound - a veteran member and one of the most prominent voices within the IOC - says the Games will be put back.
“On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” he told USA Today.
“The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.”
Pound believes the IOC will announce its next steps soon and says the consequences of the decision to move the event will be 'immense'.
“It will come in stages,” he added. “We will postpone this and begin to deal with all the ramifications of moving this, which are immense.”
Canada and Australia are the biggest countries to so-far pull out of the Olympics, had they been held at the scheduled dates.
IOC chief Thomas Bach said on Sunday that cancelling the Games "wouldn't be fair".
"The Olympic Games cannot be moved like a football game next Saturday," he told Germany's SWR broadcaster.
"It is a complex undertaking and you can only act responsibly when you have a clear decision-making foundation.
"A cancellation of the Games would be the least fair solution. A cancellation would destroy the Olympic dream of 11,000 athletes of 206 Olympic committees."
