YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 7, ARMENPRESS. The postponed Tokyo Olympic Games will go ahead next year "with or without Covid", the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Vice President John Coates said.

Coates confirmed to news agency AFP that the Olympics would start on 23 July next year, calling them the "Games that conquered Covid".

The Tokyo Olympics were originally scheduled for July 2020, but were delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"The Games were going to be their theme, the Reconstruction Games after the devastation of the tsunami," Coates told AFP, referring to 2011 catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

"Now very much these will be the Games that conquered Covid, the light at the end of the tunnel."

Editing by Stepan Kocharyan