25 Mar 2020

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has   postponed the 2020 Olympic Games Tokyo TO 2021 due the  COVID-19 pandemic.

The Olympics were billed for Japan from July 24 to August 9.

This comes after the IOC president Thomas Bach, and the Prime Minister of Japan, Abe Shinzo, held a conference call to discuss the constantly changing environment with regards to COVID-19 and the Olympic Games.

If Japan misses the opportunity to host the Olympics altogether, it will be the second time the misfortune falls on the Asian country as in 1940 the Olympic Games, which were supposed to be staged in Tokyo, were moved to Helsinki and later cancelled due to World war 11.

Commenting on the postponement of the games, Game Mothibi, who is a student of Tsukuba International Academy of Sport (TIAS) at the University of Tsukuba in Japan said even though she was looking forward to the games, IOC had no option but to postpone them to 2021

“Looking at what is going on around the world, clearly nothing was left, but to cancel or postpone Tokyo 2020.

Already looking at China and Italy, it’s clear they were not going to participate should the games go on.

Spain, Iran and other hard hit nations were not going to be able to participate,” she said

She said without the participation of  most countries at the Olympics,  Tokyo 2020 was already falling short of its target to have all nations  at the games and to reach the 48.8 per cent of women participation.

Mothibi said  countries such as Canada and Australia pulled off, and team Great Britain were   already planning to follow suit, adding that this meant that athletes from the big countries who were targeted to increase viewership of the games were not going to be there, which presented another risk.

Furthermore, she said France and the US which had  also urged IOC to make a quick decision, joined Slovenia, Germany and Brazil, saying they anticipated that most teams were going pull out.

She said the cancellation of most qualifying games and preparation games meant that most of the athletes missed the opportunity to qualify for the games and were already compromised as most teams were not able to prepare fully.

Asked how prepared Japan was to host the Olympics, Mothibi said, a lot of venues, games village as well as the main stadium were ready by January.

She also said volunteers had been selected and a lot was in place, adding that the country  was over 80 per  -  cent  ready to host the games.

As for team Botswana,  Mothibi  said the postponement was a blessing in disguise because preparations for the games were already derailed since they  started late.

Therefore, she said the postponement would give the team time to resolve any pending issues and  more time to prepare.

However, she said the  postponement was also a blow since for the first time, there were Batswana who had grouped themselves and raised enough money to go and support team Botswana.

She said at least 28 people were financially ready to go and support and had booked flights over and above purchasing games tickets.

“It’s a blow and we are only hoping they will be patient to wait for next year, but they were determined to be there and support team Botswana at Tokyo 2020,” she said. ENDS