For weeks, Olympic organizers have relentlessly pushed a consistent message: The Summer Games in Tokyo will not be canceled or postponed.
On Wednesday, Olympic Minister Seiko Hashimoto called postponement "inconceivable," pushing back on a Wall Street Journal report in which Haruyuki Takahashi, a member of the executive board for the Japanese organizing committee, suggested that the games could be delayed by one or two years if unable to be held as scheduled due to the coronavirus outbreak.
"With the star athletes in the middle of preparations for this event which happens only once every four years, a cancellation or delay to the Tokyo games is inconceivable," Hashimoto said in a parliamentary committee. "A delay is not under consideration."