Sport Ireland Chief Executive calls for Olympic postponement

Sport Ireland Chief Executive John Treacy has called for the Tokyo Olympics to be postponed.

The four time Olympian believes the IOC should delay the Games pointing out there is too much uncertainty surrounding qualification.

The 1984 silver medal winner believes the current climate doesn’t even allow for qualification planning for athletes across the board.

Treacy would like the Olympics to be pushed back to the Autumn or next year.

“I think the least-worst option would be to put them back until the autumn,” says Treacy.

“If that doesn’t happen, then give it the year. In fairness to some athletes if they push them back any longer, say 2022, it would to be too long.

“That decision needs to come sooner rather than later. Athlete welfare is the most important thing here, should be the basis for any decision. Time is running out. If I was an athlete, I would prefer if they had decided by now, that we’re going to push this back to the autumn time. It would take some of the pressure off in terms of qualification, which is big uncertainty right now, a huge issue.”

Despite increasing dissent among athletes, coaches and some member federations, the IOC said on Tuesday there was no need for “any drastic decisions at this stage”.

The IOC prompted all athletes to continue to prepare as usual.

Treacy points to boxing and the cancellation of the European Olympic qualifiers as an example of the confusion and stress that the scenario brought about.

“From the athlete’s point of view, we saw the situation with our boxers at the qualifying tournament in London last weekend. The tournament was abandoned, and rightly so. Brendan Irvine was the one boxer who got across the line , which is fabulous, but for the rest of them, who put all their nervous energy and physical conditioning into this, it’s very demoralising.

“Now, if you haven’t qualified already, where will that chance come? When is it going to be? And it’s impossible to plan for a peak when you don’t know any of that. If you look at track and field, it’s all about peaking, usually once or twice in any given season.”