By Joe Koizumi

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has finished his official telephone talk with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach from 9 PM today (Tuesday), and publicly announced to the nation as follows:

We proposed a postponement of the Olympic Games for about a year until the summer 2021 due to the coronavirus outbreak all over the world, and the IOC president Bach then fully agreed to our proposal to mutually decide that the Games won’t take place this year, nor be cancelled but postponed. This scenario has just become solid and final.