As the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc with sport across the world the Olympics have been postponed until July 2021. Despite this, Games Chief, Yoshiro Mori came out yesterday saying that if the games don’t take place next year they will be scrapped altogether.

Japan was awarded the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in 2020, in September 2013. Over the seven years, they have supposedly spent $7.4 billion, however this figure is expected to be much higher (nearer $20 billion), but it now seems that all the work may have been for nothing, as 2021 is now seen as Japan’s last chance to pull off sport’s biggest showcase. Coronavirus has caused so much pain and suffering to families and communities across the world and it has affected sport terribly. Most professional football leagues have been postponed including: the Premier League, La Liga and the Bundesliga, while Ligue 1 and the Eredivisie have both been cancelled in the last few days.

The Olympics attracts over 11,000 athletes and puts them all into a confined space, the Olympic Village. When the athletes are not competing this is where they spend their time resting, eating, sleeping and enjoying the atmosphere of the games. However putting so many people together while coronavirus still lingers is surely a recipe for disaster. Athletes with symptoms would be forced to pull out of their events and if many athletes have symptoms events may not have enough competitors to take place. Everyone wants to see the best athletes performing at the top of their game and while coronavirus is still a threat, I cannot see this happening.

The only way around the problem would be to come up with a vaccine, but the latest news on that is that we won’t have one until late 2021, which in terms of the Olympics is too late. Even if a vaccine was made in time, it would be almost impossible to vaccinate over 11,000 athletes, 35,000 volunteers and around 500,000 tourists and spectators before they descended on Tokyo. It would take just one of these people to have the disease and suddenly thousands once again have the fatal virus.

No one wants to see the Tokyo Olympics ‘scrapped’ and after the torment of coronavirus people from around the globe will need something to enjoy once the virus is gone, but if we want to stop a second worldwide wave, it may be best to forget about the 2020/2021 Olympics, even though Japan would face incredible levels of debt, and turn our attention to the Paris 2024 Games for that long-awaited celebration of sport. For now we can only hope and pray that a scientist somewhere can provide the medicine needed to combat coronavirus and the world can return to normality and the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games can take place.

H