Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and IOC President Thomas Bach have agreed to postpone the Tokyo Olympics until no later than the summer of 2021. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed delaying the Tokyo Olympics by at least a year on a call with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach on Tuesday, reported NHK.

Abe and Bach talked over the phone on Tuesday to discuss what to do about the Games. That comes in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

Bach agreed with Abe's proposal to postpone the Games by about a year.

Earlier International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound said the 2020 Olympic Games will be postponed by one year because of coronavirus, says

It comes after the chairman of the British Olympic Association said Great Britain would be unlikely to send a team to Tokyo this summer.

Australia and Canada have already said they will not compete in Japan. "On the basis of the information the IOC has, the postponement has been decided," Pound told USA today.

"The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on 24 July, that much I know."

The International Olympic Committee has given itself four weeks to decide on the future of this summer's Games, but veteran IOC member Pound says a decision will be announced soon.

"I think it is very simple. If the virus continues as predicted by the government, I don't think there is any way we can send a team," Robertson told Sky Sports News.

"First, I don't see any way that the athletes and Team GB could be ready by then. Elite training facilities are perfectly understandably and quite correctly closed around the country, so there is no way they could undertake the preparation they need to get ready for a Games.

"Secondly, there is the appropriateness of holding an Olympic Games at a time like this. We are actually in a process where we are talking to all our sports. We will complete that over the next couple of days.

It then "urgently called" on the IOC, the International Paralympic Committee and the World Health Organization to postpone the Games for a year.