By Grace Kotnik
The Summer Olympic Games is something the entire world looks forward to every 4 years. It is a way to gather the best of the best from all around the world. Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 virus, the 2020 Summer Olympics has officially been postponed to the summer of 2021.
The first Summer Olympic games was held in 1896 in Athens Greece. There were only 14 countries that competed. There were also far fewer events when the Olympics first started; these events included, different track and field events, wrestling, boxing and equestrian events. Now there are 33 events being competed, including archery, rugby, surfing and sailing, and there are 206 countries that will compete for the gold.
Postponing the Olympics is a huge decision but definitely a necessary step to reduce the spreading of this virus. The olympics has only been postponed 3 other times in history since the Olympics first started. All 3 of these instances had to do with the first and the second world war.
When first announced that it would be postponed the Japanese Prime Minister made it very clear that these Olympic Games will not be cancelled and should take part around summer of 2021. This affects many things including the Japanese economy. First, when tourists come from around the world to watch the games they are making so much money. Thinking about all the food purchased, the clothing, souvenirs and the cost of tickets to get into the event and plane tickets. This also affects the athletes because their training all correlates to when the olympics was supposed to happen, now they have to use this extra year to prepare even more and come back even stronger.
The Olympic Games 2020 is the biggest event so far to be affected by this global pandemic. This really does show the severity of this virus. Our world has not experienced a pandemic like this since the 1920s. The whole world is trying their best to do whatever they can for it to stop spreading, postponing the olympics is something vital to stop spreading disease.
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