The IOC executive board ruled out canceling the Games.
Canada and Australia will not send athletes to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo because of the risks associated with the coronavirus outbreak, the Olympic committees for both countries said in separate statements.
Both countries’ Olympic committees also are calling for the Games to be postponed until 2021, CNN reported.
“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 Canadian Olympic Committee and Canadian Paralympic Committee said in a joint statement Sunday. “This is not solely about athlete health – it is about public health.”
The Australian Olympic Committee’s executive board met by teleconference Monday and unanimously agreed that an Australian Olympic team could not be assembled given the changing circumstances across the world, the committee said in a statement.
The committee also said “our athletes now need to prioritise their own health and of those around them, and to be able to return to the families.”
“It’s clear the Games can’t be held in July,” said Ian Chesterman, Australian Team Chef de Mission for Tokyo. “Our athletes have been magnificent in their positive attitude to training and preparing, but the stress and uncertainty has been extremely challenging for them.”
Australian Olympic Committee CEO Matt Carroll said athletes should prepare for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
“The athletes desperately want to go to the games…but they also take onboard their own personal health,” Carroll told reporters in Sydney on Monday. “We need to give our athletes that certainty and that’s what we’ve done.”
The committees’ decisions came hours after International Olympic Committee’s executive board said it is considering postponing – but not canceling – this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The IOC board said it is considering several options to deal with the ongoing outbreak, including modifying plans to allow the 2020 Tokyo Games to begin on schedule on July 24 or changing the start date for the Games.
The IOC executive board ruled out canceling the Games.
(c) Unian
I wonder if the decision of the IOC has anything to do with money?
Complete garbage to proceed with the games in the wake of Corona, economic turmoil and global travel restrictions. Japan and the IOC both got the ass wide open! 👎
I’m waiting to see which asslickers turn up to Putin’s propaganda parade on May 9th. We know he won’t cancel it, let’s hope Merkel goes, and the US can send Rand Paul, seems both caught coronavirus.
Paul is a poisonous little maggot, so he would fit in well at that fascist spectacle. He was outed as a Russian agent by Johnny McCain. Naturally there was no law suit because it was obviously true, but it does explain the spitting hatred that John was subjected to towards the end of his life. That hatred came not from the left as would be expected, but from Trump and his media acolytes: Alex Jones, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson (naturally: he is the Fox News rat who actually announced on air that he was rooting for Russia in its struggle against Ukraine) as well as of course Rand’s scrofulous putler jackboot licker father: Ron.