The Tokyo Olympic organising committee on Thursday set up a task force to start dealing with the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympic Games.
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The team held the first meeting two days after the International Olympic Committee announced the postponement of the 2020 Games with the novel coronavirus spreading worldwide rapidly.
“From now on, we take on an unprecedented challenge’’” organising committee president Yoshiro Mori told some 30 members of the team.
Also organising committee chief executive, Toshiro Muto, noted that they are in a race against time.
“There are so many issues that cannot proceed unless the new date for the Games is not decided,” Muto said.
The Games were originally scheduled to be held from July 24 to August and the Paralympic games were to be from Aug. 25 to Sept. 6.
In a telephone news conference on Wednesday, IOC President Thomas Bach said the Tokyo Games in 2021 will need “sacrifices’’ as the IOC aims to find a suitable date in 2021 as soon as possible.
A task force, called “Here We Go’’ and comprising the Tokyo organisers and an IOC coordination commission, has also been set up to start planning for 2021 including finding a new date for the Games.
On Wednesday, Gov. Yuriko Koike told newsmen that Tokyo as the Olympic host city would have an “enormous task ahead of us.”
“We have problems piled up. But it’s better than cancellation,” Koike noted.