Will the 2020 Olympics Be Cancelled?
The coronavirus outbreak has had such a great impact that if the Tokyo Olympics were scheduled for this month, they would not be allowed to go ahead. That's according to Dr. Hitoshi Oshitani, a prominent Japanese virologist, who suggested finding an effective strategy to guarantee the safety of athletes, staff, spectators and media was the priority for the organizers. "I'm not sure [of] the situation in Japan at the end of July," he said at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan on Wednesday, as per The Associated Press. "We need to find the best way to have a safe Olympics. Right now we don't have an effective strategy, and I think it may be difficult to have the Olympics [now]. But by the end of July we may be in a different situation." The 2020 Olympics are scheduled to be held in Tokyo between July 24 and August 9, but a number of qualifying events have been either canceled or postponed due to the virus outbreak. The women's Olympic soccer qualifying matches for Australia, Taiwan, Thailand and China were among the events canceled, as were the World Indoor Athletics Championships and the Chinese Formula 1 Grand Prix, which were scheduled over the next two months. Over 2,000 people have been killed by the virus since the outbreak began in Wuhan, a city located in China's central Hubei province, late last year. |
Paris 2024 Olympic flame lighting ceremony (video)
219116.04.2024, 12:48Making history: Georgia’s national football team will play at Euro 2024, after defeating Greece in playoff final (photo, video)
224827.03.2024, 00:18The ''20th Caspian International Chess Festival'', which was held in Rasht has ended
107711.02.2024, 14:36Blue cards to be introduced for football sin-bins
155108.02.2024, 22:30Inter Milan shatters records with Italian Super Cup win over Napoli (video)
307223.01.2024, 11:00Jose Mourinho sacked by Roma
507516.01.2024, 16:06