Olympic organisers won’t rule out cancelling Games despite IOC saying it’s not an option

The Tokyo Games will be the first to take place under a city-wide State of Emergency

IOC president Thomas Bach says the Tokyo Games were never going to be cancelled (Shinji Kita/AP)

Hours after International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach had insisted cancelling the Games was “never an option”, the head of the Tokyo Organising Committee refused to rule out doing just that if coronavirus cases continue to rise.

In a sign of the increasing schism between the two organisations, Toshiro Muto vowed to maintain discussions relating to the local virus rate, and added, in a question which invited him to remove the possibility of cancellation: “We will think about what we should do when the situation arises.”