Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee chief still hopes Games can be held in 2020

TOKYO, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo Olympics Organizing Committee President Yoshiro Mori said on Monday that he still hopes the Games can be held in 2020 even if it has to be postponed.

"At this moment, I can only say it should be 2020," Mori said at a news conference in response to when the Games could be rescheduled.

"We have been making preparations for the Games as planned. But a lot of things have changed internationally, which makes the future of the Games hard to predict.

"There are a lot of voices asking the Games to be postponed. We are not so stupid as to hold the Olympics as scheduled."

The former Japanese Prime Minister added that there is not a chance of canceling the Olympics, as was revealed by the IOC President Thomas Bach.

"Cancelling the Olympic Games was not on the agenda at the meeting last night with Mr. Bach," he said. "It is impossible to cancel the Games."

"We will study carefully the options of postponement," he said. "Hopefully all the details can be finalized in the next four weeks."

President of the Hellenic Olympic Committee Spyros Capralos (L) passes the Tokyo Olympic flame to Imoto Naoko, an Olympian in swimming at the Olympic Games of Atlanta 1996, at the Panathenaic stadium, in Athens, Greece, on March 19, 2020. (Xinhua/Aris Messinis)

Chief Executive Officer Toshiro Muto of Tokyo 2020, who was also attending the news conference, said that the Olympic torch relay will go ahead as scheduled in Fukushima on March 26.

"We have never thought about canceling the torch relay," he said.

But Mori said that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has not decided whether to attend the torch relay opening ceremony as promised last week. ■