2020 Summer Olympics: History and Background

The 2020 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXXII Olympiad and officially branded as Tokyo 2020, were an international multi-sport event held from July 23 to August 8, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan, with some of the preliminary sporting events beginning on July 21, 2021. Originally scheduled to take place from July 24 to August 9, 2020, the Tokyo Games were postponed until 2021 on March 24, 2020 as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the only such postponement in the history of the Olympic Games (some previous editions had been cancelled but not rescheduled). However, the Tokyo 2020 branding was retained for marketing purposes.

The events were largely held behind closed doors with no public spectators permitted due to the declaration of a state of emergency in the Greater Tokyo Area in response to the pandemic, the only Olympic Games to be held without official spectators. As a consequence of the postponement and the additional challenges caused by the pandemic, the 2020 Games were the most costly ever, with a total expenditure of over $20 billion.

Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on September 7, 2013. The 2020 Games were the fourth Olympics to be held in Japan, following the 1964 Summer Olympics (Tokyo), the 1972 Winter Olympics (Sapporo), and the 1998 Winter Olympics (Nagano). Tokyo became the first city in Asia to hold the Summer Olympic Games twice. The 2020 Games were the second of three consecutive Olympics to be held in East Asia, following the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and preceding the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. Because of the one-year postponement, Tokyo 2020 is the only Olympic Games to have taken place in an odd-numbered year and the first since 1900 to take place in a common year.

New events were introduced in existing sports, including 3x3 basketball, freestyle BMX, and mixed-gender team events in a number of existing sports, as well as the return of madison cycling for men and an introduction of the same event for women. New IOC policies allowed the host city's organizing committee to add new sports to the Olympic program for just one Games. The disciplines added by the Japanese Olympic Committee were baseball and softball, karate, sport climbing, surfing, and skateboarding; the last four of these were making their Olympic debuts, and the last three have remained on the Olympic program.

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