International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Monday announced that the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo which was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic will be held from July 23, 2021. The world governing body in its official statement said,”The new dates, exactly one year after those originally planned for 2020. Olympic Games will be held from July 24 to August 9 2021,” it said. The Olympics were rescheduled in an unprecedented move by the IOC and local organizers (Japan) because of the virus outbreak. It means the opening ceremony of the Summer Games will be on July 23.
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The new dates for the Paralympics were also announced. “The revised dates for the Paralympic Games is August 25 to September 6, 2021,” the statement read. This is the first time the Olympics has been “suspended.” The opening ceremony for the Paralympics will be on August 24.
According to the official statement by IOC, the revised dates will provide sufficient time to finish the qualification process. The same heat mitigation measures as planned for 2020 will be implemented. Moreover, all the athletes who had qualified and quota places already assigned for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 will remain unchanged.
The 1940 and 1944 Summer and Winter Olympics were cancelled because of World War II, while the 1916 Summer Olympics were cancelled because of World War I.
