By Norman Mwambazi
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has disorganised many activities this year; from international conventions, conferences, tourism, to sports events and entertainment.
Football, basketball leagues, and other sports competitions were either paused for months, or postponed to later dates, and this is the case for the Olympic Games that were scheduled to take place between July 24th and August 9th, 2020 postponed to next year, July 23 to August 8.
According to John Coates, the Vice President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Olympics will go ahead in Tokyo, Japan next year, regardless of the COVID-19 situation then.
“It will take place with or without COVID. The Games will start on July 23 next year. The games are to run on their theme, the Reconstruction Games after the devastation of the tsunami,” Coates told AFP, referring to a disastrous earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011.
“Now very much these will be the Games that conquered COVID, the light at the end of the tunnel,” he added.
As it is in most countries, Japan’s borders are still closed to foreign visitors as the country tries to limit the further spread of the virus. By press time, Japan has recorded 71,856 COVID-19 cases, but the disease keeps spreading elsewhere in the world with over 27 million cases recorded worldwide.
