BREAKING: Tokyo Olympics 2020 postponed to 2021 amidst coronavirus pandemic

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has confirmed that the Tokyo Olympics 2020, which was scheduled to begin on July 24th will be delayed by a year owing to the coronavirus threat.

With multiple qualification events cancelled or delay indefinitely, the calls for the re-scheduling were only getting louder with each passing day. However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) remained unshakeable on their decision to hold the event as scheduled.

Only a few days back, the Canadian and Australian Olympic committees decided to pull out of the event, with the latter even asking their athletes to prepare for the event to take place in 2021.

With big names such as Carl Lewis, Pullela Gopichand urging the IOC to postpone the event, reports surfaced that the organising committee was indeed considering the possible delay despite the massive complications involved.

In a recent tweet, the PM's Office of Japan confirmed that after talks with IOC President Thomas Bach, the two agreed to push the commencement of the quadrennial event by a year.

After his telephone talks with IOC President Bach, PM Abe spoke to the press and explained that the two have agreed that the Tokyo Olympic Games would not be cancelled, and the games will be held by the summer of 2021. pic.twitter.com/ihe8To2g3R

— PM's Office of Japan (@JPN_PMO) March 24, 2020

This development will come as a huge relief to some of the Indian Olympic hopefuls such as Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth, Dutee Chand among others. With 74 Indian sportspersons having made the cut so far, one can only hope that this number climbs in the coming months.