The 2020 Tokyo Olympics became the first-ever Games to be postponed, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, with the new dates set between July 23 and August 8, there is a chance that the event could be cancelled altogether if that it is unable to be held next year, according to International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.
Speaking to BBC Sports, Bach said that there is no blue-print to hold the Games under such circumstances, forcing the organisers to “reinvent the wheel everyday”. Responding to a question on whether the Games would be cancelled if they were postponed again in 2021, he said that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had made it clear that Summer 2021 was the last option and that he understood why this would be the case.
"You cannot forever employ 3,000 to 5,000 people in an organising committee," Bach said. "You cannot every year change the entire sports schedule worldwide of all the major federations. You cannot have the athletes being in uncertainty" he added.
With 14 months to go for the rescheduled events, Bach stopped short of saying he was confident that the Games would occur, saying they had to be prepared for different scenarios.
Prime Minister Abe has admitted that organising the Games would be difficult without a vaccine. Responding to this, Bach told the BBC, "We have established one principle: to organise these Games in a safe environment for all the participants. Nobody knows what the world will look like in one year, in two months."
A similar view was held by Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori, who told Japan Nikkan Sports Daily in April that the games would have to be cancelled if they were postponed beyond 2021. However, Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto responded to Mori’s statement at an online news conference on Thursday, saying that there was no common understanding between the IOC and Tokyo 2020 on cancelling the event past 2021.
The decision to delay the Games was taken in March, even though the Olympic Torch had already been formally lit in Athens and then transported to Japan. The Games, originally scheduled for July 24, 2020, were postponed on March 24 at a time when the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide was over 375,000 and when just 57 per cent of athletes had been able to qualify due to numerous cancellations of the qualifiers.
Japanese authorities estimated the cost of holding the Olympics would be around $12.6 billion. However, the cost of cancelling it altogether would be far more, as businesses and brands who had spent money on sponsorships or partnership rights would also lose. A report by Capital Economics had estimated that up to 0.2 per cent of Japan’s GDP had already been spent on the Games. A Nomura report warned that cancelling the Games altogether would cost up to 1.5 per cent of GDP, with the main impact coming from consumer confidence being badly impacted and domestic spending likely dropping.
Bach’s statement comes just days after Japan entered into a recession due to the economic climate caused by COVID-19, facing the worst drop in exports at 22 per cent since the 2008 financial crisis.