The 2020 Olympics have been postponed. The formal announcement from the International Olympic Committee finally arrived on Tuesday, amid mounting pressure from athletes and stakeholders as the coronavirus pandemic worsened.
The IOC’s work, however, is only just beginning.
Postponing the Tokyo Games is not as simple as flipping a switch. “This is mind-bogglingly complex,” longtime Olympics executive Michael Payne told Yahoo Sports on Monday. With the announcement nearing, sources throughout the Olympic world raised a number of questions about the logistics of moving the Games to 2021 – about everything from venue contracts to athlete qualification processes to financial implications.