Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, has officially announced that the Tokyo Olympic Games, which were scheduled to take place from July 24 to August 9, 2020, are postponed until the summer of 2021 due to the health crisis caused by the spread of the coronavirus.

Shinzo Abe previously informed the head of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, who showed his support for this decision.

Although in recent weeks both the Japanese authorities and the IOC were confident that it would not be necessary to postpone the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, health reports have been decisive in making a decision that in recent days had been demanded by an increasing number of athletes due to the impossibility of training and preparing properly for a top-level event.

«"At the time, we asked President Bach to consider postponing the Games for a year to ensure that all athletes could arrive in the best possible condition, as well as to hold the event in the safest way possible for athletes and fans, and his response was that they were 100% in agreement with that," Shinzo Abe explained in his official appearance.

According to the Governor of Tokyo, this edition of the Olympic Games will still be called 'Tokyo 2020', will be held in the summer of next year, and the postponement will not be extended beyond that date.

Golf is one of the Olympic disciplines affected by this decision. After a brief appearance at the 1900 Paris and 1904 Saint Louis Olympic Games, golf remained absent from the Olympic program until its return at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.

Rafael Cabrera-Bello, fifth, and Sergio García, eighth, both earned Olympic diplomas in the men's category, while Azahara Muñoz and Carlota Ciganda finished in 21st and 39th place, respectively, in the women's competition.