By the time the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee called for the postponement of the Tokyo Games, that position was already crowded.
The Americans were only the latest National Olympic Committee to push the International Olympic Committee to reschedule the Games amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the past five days, a groundswell of support has pushed the notion of postponing the Olympics, scheduled to open on July 24, to a virtual certainty.
USA TODAY Sports reported Monday that longtime IOC member Dick Pound said the Games will be postponed, likely to 2021. The IOC has yet to make that official, but on Sunday it announced that it was taking four weeks to review scenarios that included postponement but not cancellation.
In the wake of that announcement, the calls for postponement came quickly.
In all, at least 10 National Olympic Committees have called for the Games to be postponed or held off until the pandemic is under control, something public health experts do not expect to happen by July.
Those NOCs made up roughly 24% of participants and 28% of medals at the Rio Olympics four years ago. Among them are some of the biggest in the Olympic movement, including Germany, Australia, Canada, Brazil and the United States.
Those statements “have clearly upped the ante,” said former IOC member Richard Peterkin. “If they left it to four weeks, there would be nobody left as they kind of all drop out one by one.”
The NOCs for Norway, Switzerland, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Portugal have all similarly said the Games should be postponed or held off until the virus is under control.
On Monday, the German Olympic Committee cited the pandemic and inability of athletes to train in president Alfons Hörmann calling for “postponing until at least 2021,” said spokesman Michael Schirp.
Following the IOC announcement on Sunday, Canada took the strongest position and said it would not send a team to Tokyo this year.
"With COVID-19 and the associated risks, it is not safe for our athletes, and the health and safety of their families and the broader Canadian community for athletes to continue training towards these Games,” the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic committees said.
Australia quickly followed, telling its athletes to prepare for a 2021 Games. Significantly, Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates is head of the Tokyo coordination commission.
The addition of Team USA to the list ratcheted up the pressure on the IOC to announce sooner, rather than later, that the Games would not go forward this year. The USOPC won the medal count in Rio (121) and had the largest delegation (558), both of which it would be expected to repeat in Tokyo.
“I would have thought that the IOC has sufficient support for postponement, but the only thing they’d have to work on is when,” said Peterkin. “At the pace of people calling, particularly NOCs and athletes, it’s not gonna take much longer.”
Absent from the calls for postponement have been several Olympic leaders.
Danilo di Tommaso, a spokesperson for the Italian Olympic Committee, told USA TODAY Sports by phone Monday that Italy will follow the IOC's lead and, if the Tokyo Games are held as scheduled, Italy will compete.
"We are totally in line with (the) IOC," he said.
Last week, Italy surpassed China for the most deaths caused by COVID-19 and has exceeded more than 5,000. Its Northern region, site of the Milano Cortina Games awarded for 2026, has been particularly hard hit by the virus.
The British Olympic Association and CNOSF, France’s Olympic committee, planned to consult with their sport federations and athlete representatives before announcing a position on Tuesday.
Press offices for the Olympic committees in China and Japan did not immediately respond to emails from USA TODAY Sports on Monday.
While some of the world’s biggest and most successful NOCs leaned on the IOC to push back the Games, the IOC found one defender – Russia.
The Russian Olympic Committee, which is currently appealing a four-year ban for a state-sponsored doping system, urged its counterparts to “keep Olympic calm.”
“We view as unacceptable any attempts to bring pressure on the organizations in charge of staging the Games and to force them to take rashly decisions,” it said in a statement.
Thus far, World Athletics and FINA – representing track and field and swimming, respectively – are the only international federations to call for postponement.
FINA president Julio Cesar Maglione said in a radio interview last week that “the games should be postponed.” On Sunday, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe wrote a letter to IOC president Thomas Bach saying an Olympic Games in July “is neither feasible nor desirable.”
Both federations have world championships scheduled for 2021 that would likely need to be moved to accommodate a Tokyo Olympics, if that’s when the IOC reschedules them.
“For both of them to come out and make those statements, they wouldn’t do it without telling Bach,” Peterkin said.
“To some extent, they may be all on the same page.”
Contributing: Nancy Armour, Rick Jervis and Tom Schad.
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