Dick Pound Says Tokyo 2020 Olympics May Be Postponed... Not Official Party Line (Yet)!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Take it with a pound of salt.

I am writing this article right before my nightly Ring Fit Adventure session—a game I've been using to get my body in shape. Why do I need to be in shape? Because I'll be representing Koopa Kingdom in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. I was supposed to be in the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games as well, but a pandemic named Zika ruined that. (That links to a massive series of KoopaTV articles and a six-part story.)

Obviously, I've been trying to pay very close attention to this new pandemic named COVID-19, or coronavirus. Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), wrote a letter to all athletes (including myself) over here. It's a lot of paragraphs but not much information or amusement (unlike a KoopaTV article). Basically, the IOC is just now considering detailed “scenario planning.” I'm not sure what took them so long to do that. I'm not impressed.

Speaking to USA Today, and clearly being out-of-turn, Mr. Dick Pound (whom is apparently a member of the Olympic Commissions on Marketing and Communications, and an Arbitrator in the Court of Arbitration for Sport; that last one at least rhymes well) claimed that “postponement has been decided.” That's a strong statement, but not supported by any other IOC member or publication. An IOC spokesman said that it was Mr. Dick Pound's “right” to “to interpret the decision of the IOC executive board” regarding scenario planning. In other words, Mr. Dick Pound is speaking for himself and not on behalf of the IOC.

According to Mr. Dick Pound, this Start button is going to be greyed out for a while, even past July 2020.

 
I don't want to have the Olympics cancelled, with all of the very hard work I'm putting into it. Postponed, sure, but it's supposed to be the SUMMER Olympic Games. If it's delayed enough, then it might not still be summer. That might not seem like it matters much, but the seasonality affects the kinds of events you can hold.

And if you still don't think it matters much, then you can join me in not being impressed with the foolish requirement that the International Olympic Committee has to maintain age-old traditions that the media breathlessly reports, such as the Olympics never being postponed before, and only ever cancelled due to World Wars. Whatever hasn't happened in the past doesn't really matter now. The Olympics are a global event like any other, and almost every significant global event is getting cancelled, virtualised, or having companies back out. Even E3 2020. (...Oh, I never wrote a dedicated article for that. Well, E3 2020 got cancelled. What will KoopaTV do during that time? Dunno.)

Update March 24 2020: Dick Pound was right. The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will not take place in 2020, and will occur in 2021. 


Ludwig would actually like the Olympics to be sooner than July 2020, because he's in peak physical condition and it's only going to go downhill from here. Do you think Mr. Dick Pound is correct in his assessment, or is he only representing himself? What if they cancel some of the sports but not all of them? Is training for the Olympics still a good thing for the sake of your body, or is it a total waste if they don't happen?


The week of E3 2020 happens... here's what's going on then.
What if the postponement was all planned out and is a conspiracy... by Cappy and the Chinese?
The Olympics might be postponed or cancelled altogether past July 2021, according to unsourced Japanese officials.
The Tokyo Olympics began at the end of July 2021. Here's the Opening Ceremony.