IOC bosses to hold series of crunch meetings about Tokyo Olympics
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is holding talks tomorrow with the heads of international sport organisations to discuss its response to the coronavirus pandemic.
It will come alongside a meeting of IOC’s executive board, which will discuss its internal response and the future of this year’s planned Tokyo games.
A decision on whether to go ahead will not be made at the meetings, according to Reuters.
Speculation has been rife that the Olympics will have to be called off as sporting competitions around the globe move to suspend or cancel seasons.
The Premier League and the English Football League have suspended until 3 April in response to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Spain’s La Liga, Italy’s Serie A and Germany’s Bundesliga have all been suspended.
It has also caused disruption for three of the major US sports leagues – the National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB) and National Hockey League (NHL).
However, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and sporting minister Seiko Hashimoto have both said the Tokyo Olympics will still go ahead in July and August.
Japan had 1,484 confirmed cases of coronavirus as of Sunday and a death toll of 29.
Abe told Japanese parliament last month that he wanted the games to be representative of the world’s victory over Covid-19.
Hashimoto said cancelling the games was “not under consideration”.
“With the star athletes in the middle of preparations for this event which happens only once every four years, a cancellation or delay to the Tokyo games is inconceivable,” he said.
However, it appears that the IOC have been in discussions around delaying some events in the qualification process at the very least.
IOC sports director Kit McConnell said in a letter to international sporting federations last week that there was a potential for qualification periods to be extended.