Covid cloud over Olympics: Tokyo Games now in 2021

By Rahul Banerji

The ever-spreading pall cast by the Covid-19 virus on Monday enveloped the biggest sporting stage of all, the Olympic Games with news that the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games will now be held next year.

USA Today writer Christine Brennan quoted veteran International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound of Canada as having said that the July 24-August 9 Games would probably have to be held next year.

And on Tuesday, Japan prime minister Shinzo Abe and IOC president Thomas Bach held a teleconference before the former made the announcement that the Games would be held next year, and not cancelled.

“We agreed that a postponement would be the best way to ensure that the athletes are in peak condition when they compete and to guarantee the safety of the spectators,” Abe said after speaking with Bach.

The Games would now be held by the summer of 2021, the prime minister added.

After an executive board meeting on Sunday, Bach had first indicated that the matter had been taken up, obviously in some detail.

Pound elaborated on that. “On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” he told USA Today.

“The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.”

Over the weekend, Australia and Canada said they would not be sending teams to Tokyo. It virtually helped seal the decision as the US and Britain had earlier sought a postponement of the Olympics.

Peculiar situation

For India, and golf in particular, this will create a peculiar stasis.

As things stand, Rashid Khan and Udayan Mane would have in the normal course of events represented India at Tokyo as the two highest-ranked players on the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) at 185 and 223 respectively.

With the Olympics cut-off date (June 22) fast approaching, their position was secure. However, the likely postponement of the Games, even with the OWGR standings frozen as they are till golf resumes around the world, could throw up a whole lot of questions:

1. Will Rashid Khan and Udayan Mane retain their status as Olympic qualifiers? As indeed other golfers in a similar position around the world?
2. With the Games possibly pushed back by a year, will it be the June 22, 2020 cut-off date that will hold valid, or will a new date be set?
3. If so, who decides on this, the IOC, the R&A or respective professional golf tours like the PGA Tour, and in India’s case, the PGTI?

Meanwhile, Pound, a Canadian, who at 78 is the senior-most IOC member, said in USA Today that the task of putting the Games back to 2021 would be taken up in phases.

“It will come in stages. We will postpone this and begin to deal with all the ramifications of moving this, which are immense.”

The IOC, for its part, had no comment to make to the USA Today writer.

Unique challenge

Separately, on Twitter, top British lawyer and Queens Counsel John Mehrzad had earlier noted that postponing a massive event like the Olympics presented a unique set of challenges.

“The IOC and Japan and parties to a contractual host city agreement, settingout mutual obligations for the performance of the @Olympics,” he noted.

“The party that ‘cancels’ or ‘postpones; that agreement, unless mutually agreed by the other party, will put itself in breach of contract and expose itself to huge (billions $) of damages claims.

“That litigation will last for years, being hugely costly not just financially but reputationally. There will be spin-off litigation from suppliers, sponsors and media networks etc who have already spent huge sums preparing for the @Olympics,” he added.

So as with everything else, Covid-19 has claimed another scalp, and this one is the biggest the sporting world has to offer.

Also read: Golf bodies come together for some Corona-virus do’s and don’ts