As Pressure Mounts, Olympics Postpone
The Lead
Audible
3.7 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2020
⏱️ 24 minutes
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Summary
(Note: A few hours after we published this episode, Japan and the IOC announced that the Olympics will, in fact, be postponed until 2021.)
Yesterday, a member of the International Olympic Committee told a reporter that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be postponed until next year. This came a day after the IOC announced that it would make a decision within the next four weeks, and after both Canada and Australia said they would not participate in the Games if they were held this summer. The Athletic’s Matt Slater joins us to explain how the IOC has gone about making this complicated decision, how exactly a country delays an event as massive as the Olympics, and what challenges the imminent delay poses to athletes.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Yesterday, there was a big but not that unexpected development in the sporting world. |
| 0:11.9 | Reports from an IOC member that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be postponed until next year. |
| 0:19.2 | The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the games are not going to |
| 0:23.2 | start on July 24. |
| 0:25.4 | The IOC responded and it quote, it's the right of every IOC member to interpret the decision |
| 0:31.1 | of the IOC executive board which was announced yesterday. |
| 0:34.7 | Closed quote. |
| 0:35.7 | Pounds comments came amid. |
| 0:37.7 | So it's not an official announcement yet, but the games seem almost certain to be postponed. |
| 0:43.1 | Today, the Athletics Matt Slater joins us to explain how the IOC has gone about making |
| 0:48.2 | this decision, how exactly a country delays an event as massive as the Olympics, and what |
| 0:54.2 | challenges this poses to athletes. |
| 0:56.8 | A lot of these athletes are in what we would call the gig economy. |
| 0:59.7 | They're sort of part-time as they're doing a bit of fitness, they're doing a bit of this. |
| 1:03.2 | For the vast majority of them, the huge check price is made and they live on that |
| 1:09.0 | full-year cycle. |
| 1:13.4 | From Wondering in the Athletic, I'm Kavitha Davidson. |
| 1:15.8 | And I'm Andres Keltow. |
| 1:17.3 | It's Tuesday, March 24th, and this is the lead. |
| 1:23.0 | It felt like something great was happening. |
| 1:27.1 | There was just something about the emotion and the heart of the game. |
| 1:31.1 | The failures of the past don't matter because we've got this now. |
... |
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