It is too early to decide whether to cancel the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, but “nobody is saying we’re going to the Games come what may,” says World Athletics chief Lord Coe.
The International Olympic Committee has said the Games could still begin on 24 July despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Coe told Tidesports source: “Let’s not make a precipitous decision when we don’t have to four months out.
“If you had to ease that date, you’d have to ease it. Anything is possible.”
Coe, who was chair of the London 2012 organising committee, also said: “Events are changing by the hour but it is not a decision that has to be made at the moment.
“We’re trying to manage the situation with the information we have but there is not a great deal of information.”
The IOC says it held “constructive” talks with athlete representatives about the coronavirus crisis earlier this week.
President Thomas Bach admitted he was “confronted with many questions” over qualification and restrictions but insisted that “everybody realised that we still have more than four months to go” until Tokyo 2020.
The British Athletes Commission said yesterday that the situation was “significantly impacting the preparation of athletes” for the Games.
“We encourage information to be made readily available and that timely decisions are made in the best interests of athletes,” the BAC statement added.
Yesterday, Tokyo 2020 organisers received the Olympic flame in a scaled-down ceremony in Athens’ Panathenaic Stadium, site of the first modern Games in Greece in 1896.
The flame was then transferred into a small holder to travel to Japan on a special aircraft named ‘Tokyo 2020 Go.’
In a video message Tokyo 2020 organising chief Yoshiro Mori said he hoped the flame’s arrival would help “shake off the dark clouds hanging over the world”.