The International Olympic Committee have revealed the new dates for the Tokyo Olympics, announcing that next year’s competition will be held from July 23 to August 08 of 2021.
This announcement follows an earlier decision made by the IOC and the Japanese Prime Minister to postponement the tournament, initially scheduled to take place this summer from July 24 to August 8. The reason: the coronavirus pandemic.
COVID-19 has affected the entire globe and the organizers, in an attempt to ensure the safety of the athletes and general public, called off the summer Olympics until 2021. A new date has finally been settled, which means the Paralympic Games will now be held from August 24 to September 5, 2021.
"Humankind currently finds itself in a dark tunnel," IOC president Thomas Bach said in a statement. "These Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 can be a light at the end of this tunnel.
"With this announcement, I am confident that, working together with the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Japanese Government and all our stakeholders, we can master this unprecedented challenge."
This means the Tokyo Olympics will kick off less than two weeks after the European Championship final, another tournament set to take place in 2020 that was pushed back to 2021. However, as things stand, the Tokyo Olympics will clash with the Women’s Euro 2021, which is still penciled in for a July 7, 2021 kick-off. However, UEFA looks to push that tournament back which will give the ladies the chance to make the trip to Tokyo.
