Beijing (AFP)
Organizers of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics admitted on Wednesday that the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics from 2020 to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic put them in "a special situation".
"The new dates for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games mean that we are facing a special situation with the Summer and Winter Games taking place in the space of half a year," said an official of the Organizing committee for the JO-2022, quoted by the Chinese agency Xinhua.
"We are going to do a detailed study of the impact of these new dates for the Beijing-2022 Games," he continued.
"In the meantime, we are in close communication with the IOC (International Olympic Committee, Editor's note) and the Olympic family to manage the situation and continue preparing for the Games at all levels," added the official.
Monday, the organizers of the 2020 Olympics announced that the event, scheduled from July 24 to August 9, 2020, will take place from July 23 to August 8, 2021, almost a year to the day after the dates initially scheduled.
The Paralympic Games will take place from August 24 to September 5, 2021.
The next Winter Games are scheduled to kick off on 4 February 2022, an unprecedented series of two Olympic Games in the space of six months since the alternation between the Winter Olympics and the Summer Olympics from Lillehammer in 1994.
China, where the epidemic began in late December, with a total of 81,518 cases, including 3,305 deaths, to date, said preparations for the Olympics-2022 were on schedule despite the coronavirus epidemic that hit stopped activity in the country for several weeks.
By hosting the Olympic Games 2022, Beijing will become the first city in Olympic history to host the Summer (2008) and Winter Games.
© 2020 AFP