Japan and the International Olympics Committee officially agreed to postpone the 2020 Olympics on Tuesday. The decision came after multiple conversations between Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and IOC president Thomas Bach. With the games just a few months away and not enough progress made with tackling the coronavirus outbreak, this was a long time coming, especially after Canada and Australia both announced they would not be sending their athletes to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The Olympics are of course a major production to put on. Athletes, fans, broadcasters and workers come from all over the world for the event. The Olympics have been interrupted before, but rarely have they been postponed or canceled. Here's a look at those occasions.
1916 Summer Olympics
These games were canceled because of World War I. They were scheduled to be held in Berlin. The war began in 1914 and lasted until the winter of 1918. Berlin eventually got to host the Summer Games in 1936, which were the last games to be played before the start of World War II.
The 1940 Summer and Winter Olympics
Both were called off due to World War II. The summer games were scheduled to take place in Tokyo. They were rescheduled for Helsinki, Finland, but then eventually canceled altogether. The Winter Olympics were set for Sapporo, Japan but moved because of the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. They were eventually set to take place in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany but the second world war caused the cancellation of the games entirely.
The 1944 Summer and Winter Olympics
World War II lasted long enough that is also caused the cancellation of the 1944 Games. London won the bid for the Summer Games, while Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy was awarded the Winter Games. Neither got to host in that elected year due to the war. Cortina d'Ampezzo eventually hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics.
