The IOC has decided that the Tokyo Olympic Games will start on July 23, 2021 and run to August 8 after being postponed for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

On March 30, the International Olympic Committee’s executive board met to make the decision.

The Olympics will still be called Tokyo 2020 despite taking place in 2021.

The Paralympic Games, originally due to start on August 24, 2020, will now take place between August 24 and September 5, 2021.

IOC president Thomas Bach said: “I am confident that, working together with the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Japanese Government and all our stakeholders, we can master this unprecedented challenge.

“Humankind currently finds itself in a dark tunnel. These Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 can be a light at the end of this tunnel.”

The decision to postpone both events was taken to protect the health of the athletes and everyone involved, and to support the containment of the new coronavirus.

Coronavirus: Tokyo 2020 Olympics Postponed Until 2021

The new dates also took into consideration the rest of the global sports calendar after the men’s soccer European Championship was postponed to the summer of 2021.

The World Athletics Championships, originally set to take place in Oregon, USA, between August 6 and August 15, 2021, will now be postponed until 2022.

Olympic organizers hope the delay will allow sufficient time to finish the qualification process which will follow the same mitigation measures planned for 2020.

It has previously been confirmed that all athletes already qualified and quota places already assigned will remain unchanged.

Purchased tickets would be valid for rescheduled events or a refund could be requested when the new dates were set, organizers previously confirmed.

On March 24, Japan’s PM Abe Shinzo said the Games would be held in their “complete form” and no later than summer 2021.

Tokyo 2020 organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori said he had proposed the July 23 to August 8 timeframe to the IOC, and that Thomas Bach had agreed, following consultations with the international sports federations.

It is the first time in the Olympic Games’ 124-year modern history that they have been delayed, though they were cancelled altogether in 1916 because of World War One and again in 1940 and 1944 for World War Two. Cold War boycotts affected the summer Games in Moscow and Los Angeles in 1980 and 1984 respectively.