Brendan O’Boyle
Staff Writer
COVID-19 has called for a rescheduling of just about every social gathering imaginable. With most professional sports canceled, people around the globe wondered what would happen with the Olympics. As of now, the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games will be postponed until July 23 of 2021 and the Paralympic games will start on August 24 of 2021. While the Olympics have been canceled before due to World War I, this will be the first time in history that the Olympic Games will be postponed to another year.
The president of the International Paralympic Committee, Andrew Parsons, said that he feels good about the change: “The new dates provide certainty for the athletes, reassurance for the stakeholders and something to look forward to for the whole world.”
It was decided by the Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe and the leaders of the committee in charge of the Olympics, that the games would be a sort of “light at the end of the tunnel” for the world. They are hoping that the event will give everyone something to look forward to in these trying times and believe that canceling the event would have just caused more negative feelings. Andrew Parsons also said that he feels the games will be an even more joyous event when they do come around because of all the hardship the world has endured.
“When the Paralympic Games do take place in Tokyo next year, they will be an extra-special display of humanity uniting as one, a global celebration of human resilience and a sensational showcase of sport,” Parsons said.
The athletes planning on competing in the Olympic games took to social media to react to the news. Two-time Olympic diving medalist Tom Daley mentioned how he would be feeling the effects of being another year older when competing in 2021, but he feels that this is the right thing to do. Many athletes said the same thing while posting on Instagram and Twitter, but also offered words of encouragement, feeling that this is just a minor setback in the grand scheme of things.
