International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has opened the door for the next year's rescheduled Tokyo Olympics to take place in the spring rather than summer.
Bach told a media conference call this morning that "sacrifices and compromises" will be needed as preparations now begin for to find a new slot after the Games were postponed for the first time.
He says the IOC will open dialogue with 33 federations later this week and that they'v established a task force group to explore options about re-fixing the Olympics and Paralympics.
"These postponed Olympic Games will need sacrifices, will need compromises from all stakeholders," Bach said while confirming that the Games must take place before the end of summer 2021.
“We have to see with them what the options are, after having consulted with them we also have to take into account the sporting calendar around the Olympic Games and many many other issues.
“We should come to a solution as soon as possible, but first priority should be the quality of the decision, to really be able to take the input of all stakeholders into account.
The IOC president admits finding a place in a busy sporting schedule could prove difficult and he also revealed that the spread of COVID-19 in Africa and South America ramped up talks about postponing this summer's Olympics:
“We had at the very beginning of this crisis a clear focus on the development in Japan, where we had always to evaluate whether Japan would be in a position to offer a safe environment for every participant.
“This focus then shifted more and more to the international world because we could see on the one hand the progress being made in Japan fighting the virus and the efficiency of the measures being taken, but we also had to see on the other side that the virus was spreading so rapidly that it became more and more a question whether the world could travel to Japan and whether Japan could afford, in the spirit of containing the virus, to really invite the world.”
