Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attends a upper house budget committee session at parliament in Tokyo on March 2, 2020. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP) (Photo by KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images)
The International Olympic Committee [IOC] is proceeding on the basis that the Tokyo Olympics will take place in 2021 with no Plan B for deferring the Games again, according to John Coates, head of the IOC’s inspectorate for the Games.
“We’re proceeding on the basis that well there is no Plan B of deferring the games again or anything like that,” said John Coates, head of the IOC’s inspectorate for the Games Saturday.
The International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government postponed the Games in March until July 2021 because of the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
“We’ve got a task force at the IOC, a taskforce in Japan. This is a massive exercise, and we are working through now getting the same venues, the same 43 venues.
“We’ve got the same dates, so the same scheduling. We’re doing all of that,” Coates said.
Coates, Australia’s Olympic chief, and head of the International Olympic Committee’s inspectorate for the Games attended an annual general meeting of the Australian Olympic Committee in Sydney Saturday.
Last month, Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori admitted the Olympics could be canceled if the Covid-19 pandemic continues into next year.
The Games are scheduled to start from July 23, 2021, having already been postponed a year amid the virus outbreak.
