Jeremy Yudin
The 2020 Summer Olympics have officially been postponed due to the risk of COVID-19, which has sickened more than 350,000 people and killed 16,000 around the world.
The news comes after Canada announced Sunday that they won’t be sending their athletes to the 2020 Tokyo games.
Almost 150 Canadians qualified for the 2020 Olympics. Only 57 per cent of Olympic qualification spots had been determined.
The games were set to take place between July 24 and Aug 9.
International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound said the Games are to be postponed likely to 2021. The details would be worked out over the next four weeks.
“It will come in stages,” said Pound. “We will postpone this and begin to deal with all the ramifications of moving this, which are immense.”
“With COVID-19 and the associated risks, it is not safe for our athletes, and the health and safety of their families and the broader Canadian community for athletes to continue training towards these Games. In fact, it runs counter to the public health advice which we urge all Canadians to follow,” wrote the Canadian Olympic Committee and Canadian Paralympic Committee in a statement.
Kayleigh Bush, a Humber cross country athlete, supported the decision to cancels the Games.
“It’s more than just sports. You have to think about the health of everyone,” she said. “It’s really disappointing (for athletes) because that’s something that they’re striving for and to see that cancelled is hard to see.”
Bush, who made the 2019 Ontario Colleges Athletic Association (OCAA) Second-Ontario Team, was looking forward to seeing Canadian runner Melissa Bishop-Nriagu, who competed in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.
The 2020 Tokyo Games have been one of many events to be postponed due to COVID-19. Also known as the Coronavirus, the disease has spread across the world after it was first identified in Wuhan, China in December.