Tokyo 2020: Rescheduling Olympic Games “A Huge Jigsaw Puzzle” – Thomas Bach
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach says the rescheduled Olympics is “a huge jigsaw puzzle” and finding the right time in the calendar will be a “challenging question”.
The decision was announced on Tuesday that the Olympic and Paralympic Games would be postponed until 2021 due to the worldwide spread of the coronavirus. New dates have yet to be confirmed, but it was widely assumed that it would take place in July next year.
Bach said that the Olympics was “facing an unprecedented challenge now” as this was the “first ever postponement in history” and they are now trying to reorganise the “most complex event on the planet”
Thomas Bach, risked backlash from athletes by stating that the Olympics could take place in spring. British hurdler Dai Greet, 33, reacted to this by tweeting ‘When do we get the chance to compete and qualify for a spring Games? This summer will be sparse at best. Someone have a word.’
Experts predict that delaying the Games could cost organisers around £2billion. Bach did not know what would happen with the athletes village and many of the 5,600 have already been sold and where due to be converted into apartments for residents to move into in March 2023.
Asked what the priorities were when compromises are being made, Bach said:
‘This is one of the many thousands of questions that this taskforce will have to address” Bach said. “We will do whatever we can for there to be an Olympic village in the traditional form.”
“But we are at an unprecedented situation and an unprecedented challenge and I guess that these postponed Olympic Games will need sacrifices and compromises. We have to find a best possible solution under the circumstances we are living in.”
“This is like a huge jigsaw puzzle and every piece has to fit. If you take out one piece, the whole puzzle is destroyed. Everything has to come together and everything is important.”
