PARIS • Olympic chiefs are bracing themselves for the extra costs incurred by postponing the Tokyo Games to next year.

The decision to delay the summer Olympics by 12 months was taken last week amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. According to the latest budget, the Games were due to cost US$12.6 billion (S$18.1 billion), shared between the organising committee, the government of Japan and Tokyo city.

The delay affects every aspect of the organisation, including the Olympic athletes' village, hotels, ticketing, venues and transport.

"There will be additional costs on one side for the Tokyo organising committee and there will be additional costs for the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and Olympic family," Christophe Dubi, the Olympic Games' executive director, said in a conference call on Thursday.

"We are looking into those with great detail. It is tens of thousands of lines of budget that need to be reviewed."

The IOC is aiming to make the athletes' village available again even though it was to have been sold off as apartments after this year's Games.

"The village is part of the first priority," Dubi added. "The village is the home away from home, a fantastic development. It is one of the very first tasks to re-secure this fantastic property. Yes, it is absolutely on that urgency list."

Other first-priority locales comprise the dozens of sports venues, convention sites and thousands of hotel rooms. "All of this has to be re-secured for one year later," he said. "It is a massive undertaking to get back to fundamentals."

He added that the IOC planned to have finalised talks for those key locations in a matter of weeks.

Turning to questions over athletes' participation, IOC sports director Kit McConnell said nothing had been decided on those footballers currently under 23 years of age and eligible for an Olympics this year, but who would be a year older next year, with each team allowed only three over-23 players.

"We're in discussions with federations, including Fifa," he said. "There's no decision yet, but it's logical to look at that."

He added that all athletes who had already qualified for Tokyo 2020 would be eligible next year, although they are not necessarily guaranteed a spot as their presence depends on them making the cut for their national teams.

"The NOC (national Olympic committee) retains the right to select athletes," he said, with 57 per cent of the 11,300 athletes having already qualified.

McConnell said that the marathons and race walking events would take place in the northern city of Sapporo next year, as they would have done this year.

"The competition schedule remains in place and that includes Sapporo," he said.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS