Virus poses new threat to Games

Organizers insist Tokyo Games on track as calls for postponement grow louder

LONDON The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Tokyo 2020 organizers insist the Games will proceed as planned despite the global coronavirus pandemic, but calls for a postponement are growing louder.

If there is ultimately a delay, maybe by a few months or a year or even two, it wouldn’t be the first time Olympic plans have been blown off track.

In 1906 that was literally the case when the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius led to the 1908 Summer Olympics being reassigned from Rome to London as Italy diverted funding to rebuilding Naples.

Back then, in simpler times without television or professional athletes, the Games went ahead in a stadium built in just 10 months.

Financial storms have been weathered, too. Even the Great Depression, running from 1929 into the late 1930s, didn’t prevent the Los Angeles Games from going ahead in 1932.

The Summer Olympics, held every four years, have so far been interrupted only by world wars.

The planned 1916 Berlin Games never happened and the 1940 Summer Olympics were reassigned from Tokyo to Helsinki after Japan invaded China in 1937, and then to oblivion when Russia marched into Finland two years later.

Only one city, Denver in the United States, has handed back the rights after being awarded them.

In 1970, Colorado’s Mile High City was given the 1976 Winter Games but backed out in November 1972 after public resistance and environmental concerns. The Austrian resort of Innsbruck stepped in instead.

There have also been three major boycotts — of Montreal in 1976, Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984 — but each time the Games went ahead. Even after the attack during the Munich Games of 1972, when 11 members of the Israeli team and a German policeman, along with five Palestinian gunmen, were killed, the Games were back up and running after a 34hour suspension.

If Tokyo ends up being pushed back to 2021 or beyond, it would be the only time the Summer Games’ four-year spacing has been interrupted for reasons other than global conflict — not counting the 1906 ‘Intercalated Games’ that are now unrecognized by the IOC.

The Winter version has been there before, however. In 1986, the IOC opted to alternate the Winter and Summer Games at two year intervals — a change that led to the 1992 Albertville Winter Games in France being followed by Norway ’s Lillehammer in 1994.

Any delay or uncertainty is difficult for athletes, whose training routines are already severely disrupted in some countries where lockdowns are in place. Qualifying for certain sports also remains in limbo.

A lengthy delay could be a step too far for some athletes hoping for a final hurrah — even if raising the hopes of others who might not otherwise have been in contention.

“What makes this crisis so unique and so difficult to overcome is the uncertainty,” IOC president Thomas Bach told the New York Times.

“Nobody today can tell you what the developments are tomorrow, what they are in one month, not to mention in more than four months.”