The 2020 Olympics have already been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and there apparently isn't an option to do that again in 2021. After being rescheduled to begin on July 23, 2021, the Toyko Olympics organizers have no "Plan B" if they need to postpone come next year.
Tokyo Olympics spokesman Masa Takaya revealed that organizers are moving forward under the assumption that the Summer Games will open next July as scheduled.
"We are working toward the new goal," Takaya said during a conference call on Tuesday. "We don't have a B Plan."
The COVID-19 virus has spread across the entire world and the newly scheduled Olympics are still 15 months away, but the pandemic has left people in most countries under quarantine indefinitely. It's impossible to guess what the state of the outbreak will be next month, let alone next summer.
"All I can tell you today is that the new games' dates for both the Olympic and Paralympic Games have been just set up," Takaya added. "In that respect, Tokyo 2020 and all concerned parties now are doing their very best effort to deliver the games next year."
Rescheduling the Tokyo Olympics to next July has not been cheap. Between travel, securing Olympic venues, and more, its all expected to cost between $2 and $6 billion.
IOC president Thomas Bach said in a Sunday interview that the IOC would absorb "several hundred million dollars" in added costs due to the postponement. Under the Host City Agreement, Japan would be responsible for the majority of the expenses that come with a postponement.
"This is impossible to say for now," Takaya said of the added costs. "It is not very easy to estimate the exact amount of the games' additional costs, which have been impacted by the postponement."
Considering the amount of financial hurdles that the Olympics already have had to deal with due to the rescheduling, another postponement may not be economically possible -- let alone difficult to pull off logistically.
