© Copyright – 2020 – Athletics Illustrated

New dates have been confirmed for the Tokyo Olympic Games. They will start on July 23, 2021, instead of July 24, 2020.

They will run through to August 8.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board met on Monday, March 30 to make the decision.

Apparently, the Games will still be called the 2020 Olympic Games, despite taking place one year later.

IOC president Thomas Bach said, I am confident that working together with the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, the Tokyo Metropolitan government, the Japanese government and all of our stakeholders, we can master this unprecedented challenge.”

The decision to postpone both the Olympic and Paralympic Games was due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the World Athletics Championships will now be moved from August 2021 to sometime in 2022. They will take place in Portland, Oregon.

They will likely clash with the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, that are scheduled to start in late July.

Expect the Commonwealth Games to move as well.

It is the first time in 124 years that the Olympic Games have been re-scheduled. They were cancelled in 1916 and 1940 and 1944 due to the two World Wars.