Tokyo Games dates set, but organizers still face tests
Kyodo -- Apr 03
Now that the schedule of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics is decided, local organizers have finally started rearranging their preparations at full speed following the games' postponement due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But even though there are more than 470 days until the opening of the Olympics in the summer of 2021, the Tokyo Games organizing committee is finding it hard to be optimistic as it begins to rework six years of preparation.

The organizers and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach agreed on Monday to hold the Tokyo Olympics between July 23 and Aug. 8, 2021, followed by the Paralympics from Aug. 24 to Sept. 5.

Games organizing committee President Yoshiro Mori told a press conference in Tokyo upon announcing the new schedule that selecting a new date was "key" to begin sorting out the logistical details and would allow organizers to "speed up our preparations."

As the Tokyo Olympics were originally set to open on July 24 this year, organizers were in the late stages of preparations before the global spread of the pneumonia-causing virus, which first broke out in China late last year, started gathering pace.

News source: Kyodo