With the coronavirus spreading rapidly around the world, Dick Pound, the longest-serving International Olympic Committee member, told USA TODAY this afternoon that the Games will have to be postponed, likely to 2021
The decision is bleak from every perspective, especially that of the athletes, many of whom still haven’t secured a spot to compete. Others—like U.S. weightlifter Mattie Rogers, who secured a cow tub to simulate the ice baths she took at her shuttered training facility—had scrambled to find alternative ways of training.
The idea of a two-year delay has also been floated and seems to have some support in Japan. Haruyuki Takahashi, one of the 25 members on the executive board there, told the “The further out this is postponed, the further out we have extra costs related to these Games, and the further delayed we are in funding for the 2024 Olympics,”should be deciding on a new qualification process since only 57% of the athlete spots for the 2020 Games have been filled and the IOC set the end of March as the deadline for the rest.
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