<p style="font-weight: 400;">IN Bureau</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">Canada has announced that the country is pulling out of this year’s Tokyo Summer Olympics due to the Coronavirus pandemic.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and the Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC), backed by their Athletes’ Commissions, National Sports Organizations and the Government of Canada, made the "difficult decision" to not send Canadian teams to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the summer of 2020.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">"The COC and CPC urgently call on the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to postpone the Games for one year and we offer them our full support in helping navigate all the complexities that rescheduling the Games will bring. While we recognize the inherent complexities around a postponement, nothing is more important than the health and safety of our athletes and the world community," the national Olympic committee said in a statement.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">"This is not solely about athlete health—it is about public health. With COVID-19 and the associated risks, it is not safe for our athletes, and the health and safety of their families and the broader Canadian community for athletes to continue training towards these Games. In fact, it runs counter to the public health advice which we urge all Canadians to follow," it further added.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">The International Olympic Committee (IOC), in a fresh review Sunday, had assured everyone that it will not be cancelling the Tokyo 2020 Games but is reviewing the possibility of a postponement</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">"We are appreciative that it understands the importance of accelerating its decision-making regarding a possible postponement. We also applaud the IOC for acknowledging that safeguarding the health and wellness of nations and containing the virus must be our paramount concern. We are in the midst of a global health crisis that is far more significant than sport. We remain hopeful that the IOC and IPC will agree with the decision to postpone the Games as a part of our collective responsibility to protect our communities and work to contain the spread of the virus," said the Canadian Olympic committee.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">The IOC, meanwhile, faces a huge predicament. "The scenarios relate to modifying existing operational plans for the Games to go ahead on 24 July 2020, and also for changes to the start date of the Games. This step will allow better visibility of the rapidly changing development of the health situation around the world and in Japan. It will serve as the basis for the best decision in the interest of the athletes and everyone else involved," the IOC assured Sunday.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">The Committee said it has full "confidence" in Japan tackling the issue.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">"On the one hand, there are significant improvements in Japan where the people are warmly welcoming the Olympic flame. This could strengthen the IOC’s confidence in the Japanese hosts that the IOC could, with certain safety restrictions, organize Olympic Games in the country whilst respecting its principle of safeguarding the health of everyone involved. On the other hand, there is a dramatic increase in cases and new outbreaks of COVID-19 in different countries on different continents. This led the EB to the conclusion that the IOC needs to take the next step in its scenario-planning," said the IOC.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">A number of critical venues needed for the Games could potentially not be available anymore. The situation with millions of nights already booked in hotels is also extremely difficult to handle, and the international sports calendar for at least 33 Olympic sports would have to be adapted. These are just a few of many, many more challenges facing the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee and the Japanese authorities, and of all the International Federations (IFs) and National Olympic Committees (NOCs).</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">It would also require commitment from, and collaboration with, the Rights-Holding Broadcasters (RHBs) and partner sponsors.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">IOC President Thomas Bach Sunday wrote to the global athlete community to provide them with an explanation of the IOC’s approach.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">In the letter, Bach stated once more that safeguarding the health of everyone involved and contributing to contain the virus is the fundamental principle. He said: “Human lives take precedence over everything, including the staging of the Games. The IOC wants to be part of the solution. Therefore, we have made it our leading principle to safeguard the health of everyone involved, and to contribute to containing the virus. I wish, and we all are working for this, that the hope so many athletes, NOCs and IFs from all five continents have expressed will be fulfilled: that at the end of this dark tunnel we are all going through together, not knowing how long it is, the Olympic flame will be a light at the end of this tunnel.”</p>.