Tokyo Olympic Games will go on but not at its sched­uled time which was Ju­ly 24 due to COVID-19.

The coro­n­avirus has caused the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) to post­pone the world's great­est sport­ing event to next year.

On Tues­day, T&T Olympic Com­mit­tees (TTOC) pres­i­dent Bri­an Lewis ex­pressed his or­gan­i­sa­tion's full sup­port to the IOC and Tokyo 2020 Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee for their joint de­ci­sion to post­pone the Tokyo Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games.

"The mes­sage from the IOC on Tues­day is the Games are on, just not this year! I am hap­py the IOC didn't can­cel the Games," said Lewis.

"The health of the ath­letes and all Olympic stake­hold­ers is the num­ber one pri­or­i­ty," said Lewis. "The TTOC ap­pre­ci­ates the cer­tain­ty this de­ci­sion pro­vides ath­letes and NOCs (na­tion­al or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tees) who can now plan on the ba­sis that the Games will not take place this year but not lat­er than sum­mer 2021."

The world was await­ing the ex­cit­ing sport­ing pe­ri­od from Ju­ly 24 to Au­gust 9 to wit­ness its best ath­letes on dis­play in Japan but the spread of COVID-19 has forced the IOC to resched­ule at dates still be an­nounced.

Lewis feels that it is im­por­tant that the IOC an­nounces the new dates with­in the four-week win­dow, say­ing: "The de­ci­sion to post­pone isn't a sur­prise. I had in­di­cat­ed to the IOC March 17 dur­ing a tele­con­fer­ence with pres­i­dent Thomas Bach that the TTOC and I had con­cerns about the im­pact of COVID-19 and we be­lieved that Oc­to­ber 2020 resched­ule was prac­ti­cal and re­spon­si­ble, sub­ject to WHO (World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion) guid­ance so post­pone­ment was our pre­ferred op­tion."

The IOC state­ment said to a date be­yond 2020 and not lat­er than Sum­mer 2021, to which Lewis said, "My pref­er­ence would have been Oc­to­ber 2021. Why Oc­to­ber be­cause it's cool­er than the heat and hu­mid­i­ty of Ju­ly/Au­gust."

Next year is al­ready packed with the Caribbean Games in Guade­loupe, the Ju­nior Pan Am Games and the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games 2021 which is sched­uled from Au­gust 1-7 in T&T.

"The IOC de­ci­sion be­yond 2020 and be­fore Sum­mer 2021 has im­pli­ca­tions for sev­er­al events glob­al­ly. The Track and Field World Cham­pi­onships is sched­uled for 2021 in Ore­gon, USA, Fi­na Aquat­ics World Cham­pi­onships is 2021 in Japan and the Track and Field World In­door Cham­pi­onships," said Lewis, though adding, "I am sure our ath­letes pre­fer ad­dress­ing the prob­lems and chal­lenges of hav­ing to re­fo­cus rather than deal with a can­celled Olympics."

<T&T ath­letes sup­port de­ci­sion>

Lewis was on point with this com­ment as Olympic-bound and T&T's lead­ing ath­letes in­clud­ing sailor An­drew Lewis, swim­mer Dy­lan Carter, long-jumper An­duwelle Wright and sprint­ers Jereem Richards and Richard Thomp­son and shot-put­ter Cleopa­tra Borel agreed that it is the best de­ci­sion that could have been made by the IOC.

"The world is suf­fer­ing right now and I think it is im­por­tant that we should put every­thing aside so that we can help one an­oth­er," said Lewis, who is quar­an­tined in his apart­ment in Spain. He en­cour­aged all to lis­ten to what is be­ing said back home in T&T to stay in­side to stop the spread of the coro­n­avirus.

"Nev­er ex­pect­ed this day would come to have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have a lot more time to pre­pare for the Olympics. I've nev­er been num­ber one in the world but more time could help me get there so I'm very thank­ful for this op­por­tu­ni­ty for the chance to be the best you can be."

Carter was frus­trat­ed by the de­ci­sion to post­pone but agrees that it is a chance to get bet­ter say­ing: "I can't say it's not dis­ap­point­ing for me. I was feel­ing like we were in the home stretch. All these years of work that was com­ing to­geth­er. I'm in the best shape of my life right now and feel­ing great and it kind of sucks right now that I can't put some­thing to­geth­er to prove that or see what I can do right now. That be­ing said though I think that next year I will be even bet­ter than I would have been this year."

The na­tion­al track and field ath­letes had sim­i­lar mind­sets.

Richards said, "It was the right de­ci­sion made by the IOC for the greater good of hu­man­i­ty and to de­feat the coro­n­avirus and the spread of it. We saw the clo­sure of the NBA, the NCAA sys­tem and every­thing clos­ing down so un­til fur­ther no­tice no­body can't com­pete in any sport.

"I am a lit­tle bit dis­ap­point­ed but I un­der­stand why it has to be done. There are pros and cons to this, you have more time to pre­pare, more time to be ready to work on your weak­er ar­eas and fo­cus on the pos­i­tive. Things are go­ing to change in terms of train­ing but I'm fo­cused on stay­ing fit."

Wright, who will be mak­ing his de­but at the Games, said: "It hurt a lot of ath­letes know­ing that they were prepar­ing for the Olympics this year and now that it is a year lat­er.

I've been train­ing but lack of com­pe­ti­tion be­cause of the coro­n­avirus was a se­ri­ous is­sue for most ath­letes in­clud­ing my­self. It's back to the draw­ing board and tweak my pro­gramme a bit and go back out for next year."

For Thomp­son, he was more both­ered by the length of time the IOC took to come to the de­ci­sion say­ing: "To be hon­est, I'm a bit dis­ap­point­ed that it took as long as it did to see the IOC make this de­ci­sion. It sort of took their back is against the wall from the with­draw­al of the Cana­di­an team and the Aus­tralian team and many of the fed­er­a­tions. Nev­er­the­less, they came to a de­ci­sion I think that should have been made about two of three weeks ago but they made the right de­ci­sion."

Borel was hap­py and re­lieved to have a di­rec­tion from the IOC say­ing: "Ath­letes were putting their lives at risk to pre­pare for the Games and so now we can take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions that are best for the en­tire globe to en­sure that so many lives are saved and why yes, of course, ath­let­ics is my life, ac­tu­al lives mat­ters the most."