Tokyo Olympics could be delayed due to coronavirus, admits Sebastian Coe - MW

Sebastian Coe acknowledged that, no one said that we would go to the Olympics, what could happen when the debate about whether the Tokyo Olympics should be held this summer?

An increasing number of athletes and athletes' representatives, including the world's world sports champion, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, and Olympic gold medalist athlete, Katerina Stefanidi of Greece , expressed their interest in being able to prepare for the Olympics with much of Europe in lockout. The president of World Athletics has now accepted that there is nothing but talk about future plans - including moving the Olympics to September or October - because of the coronavirus pandemic.

It is possible, everything is possible at the moment, Lord said, Lord Coe, who is also in charge of the 2012 London Olympics. I think the position that the sport has taken, and that is certainly heat The level of room in the conversation I had on another day with the IOC and our other federations, is that no one said we were going to the Olympics. .

However, Coe did not believe that a decision had to be made. It is possible that in the process of changing events, and they are changing by the hour, that's what we have to confront, he said. However, that is not a decision to be made at this time.

When asked if the Olympics could be delayed until 2021, Coe added: It seems that on its surface it was an easy proposition, but the member federations really avoided the Olympic years. often have world championships. Athletics have a world championship on the same days that you talk about 2021 in the United States [August 6-15], so it's not quite as easy as just saying that we will move down.

“The European football championships have moved to next year, that too would clash. The sporting calendar is a very complicated matrix, it’s not
that simple to just simply say we’ll ease one event from one year to the next. We have done that with our own world indoor championships but that doesn’t clash with anything else at the same time.”

As for the prospect of combining the Olympics and the world championships next year, Coe told Radio 4’s Today programme: “It would be ridiculous of me to say anything is ruled out at the moment. We are living in an environment where everything is changing very quickly, the whole world wants clarity, that’s just simply not possible at the moment and we’re no different from any other sector.”

Meanwhile the four-times Olympic champion Sir Matthew Pinsent has increased his criticism of the IOC, saying it would be "folly" to allow the Olympics to go ahead. "I think invent the IOC saying we must try and get through if we can, which I have a degree of sympathy with, it just runs counter to what every health authority and government is saying around the world," Pinsent told the Today program.

“On a global front we have other priorities and I think the Olympics should at the very least be saying we should postpone or indeed just cancel at this stage and we’ll talk about postponement later on. I just don't think there’s much of a choice at this stage. For much of the European countries as well as Asian countries, organized sport in any meaningful way has ceased and that’s from government advice. I don't see there’s any way forward for an Olympic athlete to train effectively even as an individual but particularly in a team environment. ”

MW