If the COVID pandemic hadn't struck, the Olympic Games would have been inaugurated in Japan this week, on July 23.
This would have been third time the Japanese would have had the opportunity to run the world sporting event- 1940, 1964 and 2020.
But the 2020 Games can't go ahead due to the surge of coronavirus infections around the world.
Previously, Japan's 1940 Games were scrapped following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Professor Richard Cashman, an expert in Olympics history at the University of Technology in Sydney tells:
"They decided they would rather pursue war than hold the Games. The army actually, if they were going to hold the Games, wanted them to construct all the venues using wood, rather than metal as they wanted to retain the metal for warfare."
Similarly Olympic history has had other disruptions too:
* 1916 Berlin Games were cancelled due to war
* 1972 games in Munich (Germany) were delayed a day due to a terrorist attack
* 1908 Olympics were moved from Italy to London, after a volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius devastated the city of Naples
The 2020 Games, however, are the first to be postponed for significant period of time, rather than moved or cancelled all together.
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