2020 Summer Olympics

The 2020 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXXII Olympiad and officially branded as Tokyo 2020, were an international multi-sport event that were held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some of the preliminary sporting events beginning on 21 July 2021. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 7 September 2013.

Originally scheduled to take place from 24 July to 9 August 2020, the Tokyo Games were postponed until 2021 on 24 March 2020 as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the first such instance in the history of the Olympic Games (some previous editions had been cancelled but not rescheduled). However, the Tokyo 2020 branding was retained for marketing purposes. The events were largely held behind closed doors with no public spectators permitted due to the declaration of a state of emergency in the Greater Tokyo Area in response to the pandemic, the only Olympic Games to be held without official spectators. As a consequence of the postponement and the additional challenges caused by the pandemic, the 2020 Games were the most costly ever, with a total expenditure of over $20 billion.

The 2020 Games were the fourth Olympics to be held in Japan, following the 1964 Summer Olympics (Tokyo), the 1972 Winter Olympics (Sapporo), and the 1998 Winter Olympics (Nagano). Tokyo became the first city in Asia to hold the Summer Olympic Games twice. The 2020 Games were the second of three consecutive Olympics to be held in East Asia, following the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea and preceding the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. Because of the one-year postponement, Tokyo 2020 is the only Olympic Games to have taken place in an odd-numbered year.

New events were introduced in existing sports, including 3x3 basketball, freestyle BMX and mixed-gender team events in a number of existing sports, as well as the return of madison cycling for men and an introduction of the same event for women. New IOC policies allowed the host city's organizing committee to add new sports to the Olympic program for just one Games. The disciplines added by the Japanese Olympic Committee were baseball and softball, karate, sport climbing, surfing and skateboarding; the last four of these were making their Olympic debuts, and the last three have remained on the Olympic program.

The United States topped the medal table both by gold (39) and total medals (113), with China finishing second (38 and 89). Host nation Japan finished third, setting a record for the most gold and overall medals won by their delegation at an Olympic Games with 27 and 58. Great Britain finished fourth, with 22 gold and 64 total medals. The Russian delegation competing as the ROC finished fifth with 20 gold medals and third in the overall medal count, with 71 medals. Bermuda, the Philippines and Qatar won their first-ever Olympic gold medals. Burkina Faso, San Marino and Turkmenistan also won their first-ever Olympic medals.

The three candidate cities were Tokyo, Istanbul, and Madrid. The applicant cities of Baku and Doha were not promoted to candidate status. A bid from Rome was withdrawn.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to select the host city of the 2020 Summer Olympics on 7 September 2013, at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires, Argentina, using an exhaustive ballot system. None of the candidate cities won more than 50% of the votes in the first round; Madrid and Istanbul were tied for second place, so a runoff vote was held to determine which of the two cities would be eliminated. The final vote was a head-to-head contest between Tokyo and Istanbul. Tokyo was selected by 60 votes to 36, gaining at least the 49 votes required for a majority.

In January 2020, concerns were raised about the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on athletes and visitors to the Summer Olympic Games. Tokyo organizers and the International Olympic Committee insisted they were monitoring the spread of the disease to minimize its effects on preparations for the Olympics. The IOC stated that in 2020, their Japanese partners and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "made it very clear that Japan could not manage a postponement beyond next summer [2021] at the latest". Unlike the case for Zika virus during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted directly between humans, posing tougher challenges for the organizers to counteract the infectious disease and host a safe and secure event. Also unlike the case for H1N1 "swine flu" during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, COVID-19 has a higher fatality rate, and there was no effective vaccine until December 2020. In a February 2020 interview, Conservative London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey argued that London would be able to host the Olympic Games at the former 2012 Olympic venues should the Games need to be moved because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike criticized Bailey's comment as inappropriate. In early 2021, officials in the U.S. state of Florida offered to host the delayed Games in their state, while John Coates, the IOC vice president in charge of the Tokyo Olympics, said the Games would open even if the city and other parts of Japan were under a state of emergency because of COVID-19.