The International Olympic Committee said Tuesday that it is “fully committed” to the 2020 Olympics being held this summer.
“With more than four months to go before the Games,” the IOC said in a statement, “there is no need for any drastic decisions at this stage, and any speculation at this moment would be counter-productive.”
The IOC encouraged all athletes to continue preparing for the Games despite the global spread of the coronavirus. The Olympics are scheduled for July 24 to Aug. 9, but the IOC conceded that changes would need to be made to the qualifiers.
The IOC’s statement comes as the sports world has come to a screeching halt, with leagues around the world pausing seasons and canceling or postponing events.
The men’s Olympic golf tournament is scheduled for July 30-Aug. 2 at Kasumigaseki Country Club in the Tokyo suburb of Saitama. The women’s event will be held the following week.
The cutoff for men’s qualification is June 22, after the U.S. Open. The next few months on the golf calendar are uncertain, however, after the PGA Tour canceled tournaments for at least the next month and Augusta National announced that the Masters will postponed until a later date in 2020. The PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco is also imperiled after the latest recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for no gatherings of 50-plus people for at least eight weeks.
The IOC said that 57 percent of athletes have already qualified for the Games. For the remaining 43 percent, “the IOC will work with the international federations to make any necessary and practical adaptations to their respective qualifying systems.”