Tokyo Olympics organizers: Postponed Games will keep same venues and schedules

2020 Tokyo Olympics organizers: Postponed Games will keep same venues and schedules
Tokyo Olympics organizers: Postponed Games will keep same venues and schedules
Avatar of Harry Johnson
Written by Harry Johnson

2020 Tokyo Olympic Games organizers announced today that all venues and the schedule of competitions for the postponed event will be unchanged and Tokyo Olympic Games will be staged as planned before the event was pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March.

The Tokyo Olympic Games will feature a record 33 sports and 339 events, and all the 42 planned venues will be secured for next year’s Games, the organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori confirmed in a presentation to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) session on Friday.

The Athletes Village and the Main Press Center have also been retained for 2021.

“The Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee announced at todayโ€™s virtual IOC session that all the venues intended for the Games in 2020 have been secured for next year, and confirmed the sports competition schedule,” the IOC said in a statement following the video-conference session.

John Coates, the head of the IOC coordination commission, said that securing the venues had been a “massive task.”

The official opening ceremony of the Olympics in Tokyo is now scheduled for July 23, 2021, while the closing ceremony is slated for August 8, 2021. The Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo offer 339 sets of medals, which will be contested in 33 sports (50 disciplines).

The competition will kick off with softball at 9:00 am on July 21, two days before the opening ceremony, at Fukushima Azuma Baseball stadium. preliminary football matches will start on the same day.

The first medal event – the women’s shooting 10m air rifle – will start at 8:30 am on July 24 and a total of 11 medal events, across six more other sports (archery, cycling, fencing, judo, taekwondo and weightlifting), will also be held that day.

Urban sports, one of the highlights of the Games, will be held in the Aomi and Ariake areas throughout almost the entire period of the Games.

The marathon and race walking events will remain in the northern city of Sapporo after being controversially moved out of Tokyo because of the anticipated scorching summer heat.

The organizing committee also said the previously purchased tickets will still be valid for next year, and reimbursement will be provided upon request, although details have yet to be decided.

Earlier this week, IOC president Thomas Bach has said the IOC remained “fully committed” to staging the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021 and was considering “multiple scenarios” to ensure the safety of all participants.

However, he also emphasized that holding the Games without spectators was not what the IOC wants.

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About the author

Avatar of Harry Johnson

Harry Johnson

Harry Johnson has been the assignment editor for eTurboNews for mroe than 20 years. He lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, and is originally from Europe. He enjoys writing and covering the news.

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