The Tokyo Olympics have officially been rescheduled to start on July 23, 2021, which is close to exactly one year from the day they were supposed to be held this July. Japan’s Olympic organizers and the IOC decided last week that the games would be postponed one year amid the health concerns related to the vast spread of coronavirus.

“The schedule for the games is key to preparing for the games,” Tokyo organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori said. “This will only accelerate our progress.” The Olympics were slated to take place on July 24 and wrap up on August 9, but the games will now conclude on August 8, 2021.

Sources told ESPN that a spring start date was discussed for next year, but the committee ultimately decided against it due to scheduling conflicts with European soccer and American sports’ leagues. Mori also said hosting the games in the summer would allow more time for athletes to qualify since many of the pre-Olympic events that determine who is eligible to compete have already been postponed.

“We wanted to have more room for the athletes to qualify,” Mori said.

Tokyo Olympics New Start Date

The last few weeks the IOC and Japanese organizers’ preference was to start the ceremony in July 2020 as planned, but were convinced by athletes, sports federations and other countries’ Olympic committees to reschedule in order to keep everyone involved safe.

“These new dates give the health authorities and all involved in the organization of the Games the maximum time to deal with the constantly changing landscape and the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the IOC said. “The new dates … also have the added benefit that any disruption that the postponement will cause to the international sports calendar can be kept to a minimum, in the interests of the athletes and the IFs.”

Japan has an Olympic budget of $12.6 billion with a little more than half of that money coming from taxpayers and the remainder provided by a private fund. Because the Olympics will not take this summer, organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto says the cost of postponing the event will be “massive.”

“Since it (the Olympics) were scheduled for this summer, all the venues had given up hosting any other events during this time, so how do we approach that?” Muto asked. “In addition, there will need to be guarantees when we book the new dates, and there is a possibility this will incur rent payments. So there will be costs incurred and we will need to consider them one by one. I think that will be the tougher process.”

After weeks of speculation surrounding the start date of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe admitted Monday that the games are in jeopardy of being postponed amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

“If it’s difficult to proceed in its complete form, then we must think about the athletes first and consider postponing,” Abe told Parliament. According to sources, countries have threatened to keep their athletes at home unless the competition is postponed. The Tokyo organizing committee told reporters they will announce their decision in four weeks. Japan felt strongly that the Olympics would start on time prior to Monday’s statements.

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“What we are going to do before anything else is to start by simulating about whether we postpone one month, three months, five months, one year,” organizing committee President Yoshiro Mori said. “We need to make a simulation about the various scenarios.”

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach spoke on Sunday regarding the dramatic effect a cancellation would have on the athletes involved. “Cancellation would not solve any problem and would help nobody,” Bach said. He later added that canceling the Olympics would “destroy” the hard work of 11,000 participants across the globe.

Canada and Australia wrote letters to Bach informing the committee that they won’t send their athletes to the Olympics unless it is postponed. “While we recognize the inherent complexities around a postponement, nothing is more important than the health and safety of our athletes and the world community,” the Canadian Olympic committee stated.

According to Johns Hopkins University, 335,000 people have been infected with the virus and more than 14,000 people have died thus far.