Loretta Race contributed to this report.
On the day Tokyo 2020 organizers announced that new Olympic venues’ construction is on track, they also revealed the competitive sporting schedule for the next edition of the Summer Games. Well, most of it.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board has approved the competition schedule, featuring a record 33 sports across 339 events. However, most aquatic events’ specific dates are still ‘to be determined.’ Accompanying the high-level schedule is a note indicating, ‘Tokyo 2020 is currently completing the competition schedule by session for swimming, artistic swimming, and diving, and will finalise this shortly.’
The Games will span from July 24th to August 9th of 2020, with rowing and archery events taking place on the day of the opening ceremony itself. Per its announcement,Tokyo 2020 took a holistic approach when compiling the schedule, taking into account the technical rules and regulations of the various international federations, gender balance, the popularity of individual sports in Japan, operational considerations, athletes’ experience & well-being, and the global TV audience.’
Tokyo 2020 says a more detailed schedule by event will identify the individual times of specific events, including pool play and playoff dates, etc. But from this initial edition on its site, surfing appears to have the earliest start time of 7am, while sports such as beach volleyball and rowing list a starting time of 9am. Night events look to be scheduled for the 7pm, 8pm and 9pm timeframes at this point. Note that early-morning events in Tokyo will be prime-time viewing in the U.S. – 9AM in Tokyo is 8PM on the East Coast in the United States, where beach volleyball has historically been a huge television draw.
Volleyball Schedules for the 2020 Olympic Games:
While the first formal qualification tournaments for the Olympic Games won’t begin until 2019, qualification for the qualification tournaments have already begun, as this year’s World Championships, for example, will impact both World Rankings and automatic qualifications to the Olympic qualifying tournaments.
You can view the entire Tokyo 2020 schedule as it stands today here.
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