The organizers of the Tokyo Olympic Games are considering reducing the airfoil after the postponement to 2021. - Pierre Emmanuel Deletree // SIPA

Tokyo 2020 organizers are considering ways to reduce the airfoil of the Summer Olympics, postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the governor of the Japanese capital said Thursday. Yuriko Koike explained that Tokyo 2020 officials are looking into what could be "streamlined and simplified" as the costs of the first games in history to be postponed increase. The Japanese media reported on a small opening ceremony and a limited number of spectators.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced in late March the postponement of the largest sporting event in the world due to the pandemic of the new coronavirus, which has already killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world and almost put an end to them. international travel in recent months. The Games are now scheduled to start on July 23, 2021, but the organizers are facing an unprecedented puzzle of systematic reorganization of venues, accommodation and transportation.

Postponing the 2020 Olympics to the following year will be expensive, very expensive via @ 20minutesSport https://t.co/CqlWonYbm5

- 20 Minutes Sport (@ 20minutesSport) March 26, 2020

The daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter that everyone (athletes, officials and spectators) would be forced to undergo a coronavirus test. "The top priority is to avoid the worst-case scenario, that of canceling the Games," a Japanese government source told the daily.

Tokyo 2020 spokesperson Masa Takaya declined to provide details at a press conference Thursday, saying talks on measures against the coronavirus would take place "starting this fall". IOC boss Thomas Bach said last month that 2021 would be the "last option" to host the Tokyo Olympics, stressing that they could not be postponed once again.

The Olympics conditioned on a vaccine?

He had refused to say whether the existence of a vaccine would be a condition for the holding of the Olympic Games but had shown little enthusiasm at the idea of ​​organizing them without spectators. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said it was "difficult" to organize the Games until the pandemic was brought under control. As for the president of Tokyo 2020, Yoshiro Mori, he has also already declared that the biggest sports gathering in the world would be canceled if the pandemic was not under control by then.

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