The 2020 Olympic Games will be postponed by one year because of coronavirus, says International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound.
It comes after the chairman of the British Olympic Association said Great Britain would be unlikely to send a team to Tokyo this summer.
Australia and Canada have already said they will not compete in Japan.
“On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” Pound told USA today.
“The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on 24 July, that much I know.”
The International Olympic Committee has given itself four weeks to decide on the future of this summer’s Games, but veteran IOC member Pound says a decision will be announced soon.
“It will come in stages,” he said.
“We will postpone this and begin to deal with all the ramifications of moving this, which are immense.”
‘We will be joining Canada and Australia’
Canada and Australia had already announced their decision to withdraw from this summer’s Games when the chairman of the British Olympic Association, Hugh Robertson, said he expected Britain to be “joining shortly”.
“We can’t see any way that this can go ahead as things are constituted,” said Robertson. “I expect we will be joining Canada and Australia shortly.”
As of Sunday, there had been 5,683 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United Kingdom, with 281 deaths.
The UK government has urged the public to follow advice on social distancing, with MPs debating stricter measures to ensure people comply.
Source: BBC Sport
