Irish Olympic chiefs welcome decision to postpone Tokyo Games

The Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) has welcomed the decision to postpone the Olympic Games until 2021.

The move was seen as inevitable for some time but confirmed only today by the Japanese government and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after a conference call between the two parties.

“This is the right call given the times that we are in,” said OFI chief executive Peter Sherrard. “Nonetheless we recognize it was a difficult call for Japan to make, and we are looking forward to working with the IOC and countries all over the world to make Tokyo 2021 a poignant moment for the whole world once these difficult times are over.”

The focus for the OFI now will be the many athletes whose schedules and hopes and dreams have been put into cold storage by a pandemic which has invaded every aspect of modern life in such a short space of time.

“This decision, while totally appropriate, will impact on sport and our athletes in different ways, there will be mixed emotions,” said Team Ireland's chef de mission for the Tokyo Games Patricia Heberle.

“Our focus is to continue to engage with and support our sports as we gather as much information to determine how this will impact on both athletes who have already qualified and those who are on the path to qualification.”

Olympic chiefs had railed against the prospect of a postponement for a number of weeks, despite the spread of the coronavirus and the litany of sporting events that fell in its path, but that changed in the last week with the escalating number of voices for change.

Canada and Australia declared that they would not send athletes to Japan this summer and other organisations and federations expressed similar sentiments. In the end, the Games chiefs had no option but to press pause on the biggest sports event of them all.

A joint statement from the IOC and the Tokyo Organising Committee on Tuesday said that the Games would be moved to an unspecified time in 2021, but not later than the summer, in order to safeguard the health of the athletes and the wider population across the world.

“The leaders agreed that the Olympic Games in Tokyo 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,” it read.

“Therefore, it was agreed that the Olympic flame will stay in Japan. It was also agreed that the Games will keep the name Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020.”