#OnThisDay: Tokyo Olympics 2020 was set to begin today; a look at the timeline leading to postponement of summer games

The Olympics were due to begin on Friday with an extravagant opening ceremony in the National Stadium but the Games have instead been delayed until July 23, 2021, because of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach presided over a glitzy ceremony to mark the occasion in the Japanese capital and declared Tokyo the best-prepared host city he had ever seen.

The head of the IOC’s Coordination Commission John Coates has said rearranging the Games meant focusing on the “must-haves” in a simplified event.

In response, Tokyo 2020 Chief Executive Toshiro Muto said over 200 simplification measures were under consideration.

The Japanese capital reported 366 new coronavirus cases, a new daily record, fuelling fears of a second round of infections.

(Inputs from Reuters)

On 2 March 2020, the Tokyo Organizing Committee (TOCOG) released a statement saying the preparations for the upcoming Games were "continuing as planned".

The following day, a spokesperson for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed that the Games would proceed according to schedule.

However, on 23 March, three countries — Canada, Australia, and Great Britain — said they won't send their athletes to the Games if they were not postponed by a year.

On the same day, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stated that he would support a proposed postponement, citing that ensuring athlete safety was "paramount".

On 24 March 2020, the IOC and TOCOG announced that the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics would be "rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021". 

They stated that the Games "could stand as a beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times and that the Olympic flame could become the light at the end of the tunnel in which the world finds itself at present."

Although several Olympics have been cancelled in the past due to world wars, including the 1940 Summer Olympics, this marks the first Olympics to ever be postponed to a later date instead.

The Games will feature 339 events in 33 different sports, encompassing a total of 50 disciplines.

Alongside the five new sports that are expected to be introduced in Tokyo, fifteen new events within existing sports are also planned, including 3x3 basketball, freestyle BMX and the return of Madison cycling, as well as new mixed events in several sports.

Medals:

As for the medals they are made from recycling electronics. Aiming to collect 8 tonnes of metals to produce the medals for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, collection boxes were deployed at public locations in April 2017. A design competition for the medals launched in December of the same year.

On 24 July 2019, the designs of the medals were unveiled and the medals for the Olympic and Paralympic Games were designed by Junichi Kawanishi following a nationwide competition.

A new feature, shared with the Paralympic medals, is that the ribbons contain one, two, or three silicone convex lines to distinguish gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively.

(Image: Miraitowa (left), the official mascot of the 2020 Summer Olympics, and Someity (right), the official mascot of the 2020 Summer Paralympics)

A virtual presentation to the IOC Executive Board in Lausanne, Tokyo 2020 organisers have stated that there is a need to simplify the Games without giving details about how it would be done.

"The Games will not be a grand splendour but will be a simplified Games," said Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto, Reuters reported.

"In order to simplify the Games, we need to review and understand international federations, NOCs, broadcasters and partners. These stakeholders must act in unison to make sure of a simplified Games."

According to Muto, there are more than 200 ideas to simplify and reduce costs for the rescheduled Games. "We have not got to the level or stage where we have concrete ideas regarding what we can do to simplify the Games," he said.

While the rescheduling of the games has cost a fortune in May, the IOC said they would be putting up to $650 million towards the re-organisation of the Games.

Muto said Tokyo 2020 were still analysing what costs the Japanese side would have to bear.

Despite all these challenges, Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori said that cancelling the Games had not been discussed. "The world has changed socially, economically and medically so we have explained (to the IOC) how we have re-planned and re-positioned our organization," said Mori, a former Japanese prime minister.

"We never discussed cancellation. It is not right to discuss based upon speculation regarding hypothetical scenarios. Therefore, our direction, our policy is to not consider, at all, the cancellation."

Initially, the Tokyo Olympic Games were slated to be held from July 24 to August 9, while the Paralympic Games were scheduled to be held from August 25 to September 6.

On March 24, however, the IOC had announced the postponement of the Summer Games for about one year. The games were postponed after the coronavirus pandemic claimed the lives of nearly 30,000 people globally.

The decision was taken by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Tokyo Games organizing committee, and the Tokyo Metropolitan and Japanese governments and the sources said that all agreed on the new schedule, ANI reported.

The Games are now being billed as the expression of humanity's triumph over the coronavirus.

"Humankind currently finds itself in a dark tunnel," IOC chief Thomas Bach had said in a statement when the new date was announced.

"These Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 can be a light at the end of this tunnel."

Tokyo 2020 chief Yoshiro Mori warned that organisers were faced with an "unprecedented challenge."

"But I believe it is the mission of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee to hold the Olympics and Paralympics next year as a proof of mankind's victory" against the virus.