I wrote a couple of posts yesterday about the 2020 Summer Olympics and today it is official – they will no longer be the “2020” Summer Olympics. The Japanese prime minister has announced that they will be postponed for a year.
The 2020 Summer Olympics Are Postponed
The agreement was made between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the IOC president, Thomas Bach. They agreed that the postponement would be “about one year” out.
This is just the beginning as they will have to work through a ton of logistics concerning the moving of this huge international event. It will have many changes on industries that are already hurting right now also – like the travel industry. What will happen to all the people who purchased tickets and made non-refundable travel purchases just for the Olympics? How will the airlines, which undoubtedly were really counting on the Olympic travel, handle this?
Also, how will the individual nations handle the qualifying events? The USA already has their 6 marathon entrants and they will now have more than a year to train for the Olympics. Other track and field athletes were set to qualify in a few months. Will those events still be held? My guess would be they too would be postponed until next year.
One more part about the agreement – they said the latest date they would be held is summer 2021. That means that they could consider putting it on in the spring. That would be an absolutely beautiful time to visit Japan for sure! Also, that could allow the marathons to actually take place in Tokyo instead of being moved north. But, will Japan want to crowd into an already packed tourist season of spring with the Olympics?
At any rate, if you have travel plans for the 2020 Summer Olympics, time to start thinking about changing those! With many airlines offering change fee waivers, this could be a good time to watch and see what they do in regards to the Olympics.
