
TOKYO: Japan would tolerate the 2020 Tokyo Olympics being postponed amid the global spread of the new coronavirus, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe suggested Monday.
If it is difficult to hold the Olympic Games as currently scheduled, "there would be no choice but to make a decision on postponing the quadrennial event by putting athletes first," Abe said at a meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament.
Meanwhile, Abe said that Japan and the International Olympic Committee share the stance that canceling the Tokyo Olympics, which is now scheduled to kick off on July 24, is not an option.
He made the comments after the IOC said Sunday that it will consider the possibility of delaying the Tokyo Olympics in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
JIJI Press