The year of the restart. The 2021 that we are about to live, Covid permitting, will still be richer in sports than usual. In addition to the events already scheduled, in fact, those lost in 2020 will be recovered, thus ensuring 12 truly unmissable months.
The spotlights, inevitably, are focused on European football championships and on Olympics: both should have played last year, but the pandemic made the postponement inevitable. It was not easy to cancel two events of such importance which, as it is logical, require a gigantic organization, just like the two bodies that deal with them.
However, UEFA and the IOC had to take note of an extraordinary situation, which would have made such large and planetary events impossible, moreover at a time when it was not even possible to travel. Tokyo thus immediately took action to postpone everything for 12 months, limiting, so to speak, the economic loss to "only" 5,4 billion. In fact, the postponement of the Games cost Japan a lot, but nothing compared to a definitive cancellation: for that the bill would have been 65,9 billion, something unsustainable that Shinzo Abe, then Japanese prime minister, wanted to avoid with all her strength.
The new Olympics, which will still retain the original wording of "Tokyo 2020”, will cost around 13 billion euros (the most expensive Japanese event ever) and they will leave on July 23, to then end on 8 August. On the 24th of the same month, however, the Japanese capital will kick off the Paralympic Games, which will close on 5 September. It will be a summer full of sports, because before the Olympics there will be, as previously mentioned, the European football championships.
The situation is more or less the same: here too UEFA, the organizing body, had to count the damages and opt for a one-year postponement, thus trying to reduce the economic losses, estimated at around 300 million. This money, amortized between federations, leagues and clubs, is nothing compared to a real cancellation, which is why the entire football machine has moved to find a new date.
We will leave on11nd June and it will end on July 11, exactly one month around Europe since, for the first time in history, it will be a traveling event, which will involve as many as 12 host countries, including Italy and, in particular, the city of Roma (provided, at the Olympic stadium, three races of the group stage, including the opening round and a quarter-final).
At the same time, due to an inevitable combination of dates, the America's Cup, equally divided between Argentina and Colombia: an equally fascinating event, which will in fact make 2021 a world year. Yes, because from 9 January to 6 February there will also be the African Cup of Nations in Cameroon: three of the major football continents on the field in the space of a few months, a notable starter in view of Qatar 2022, which, however, will only be the 'next year.
To complete the very rich football menu (not counting the usual appointments of the clubs with championships, Champions League and Europa League) theEuropean Under 21, which will take place from 24 May to 6 June in Hungary and Slovenia. There is already enough to not get off the couch for months, but the 2021 calendar will not be limited only to the Olympics and other football events.
On the agenda, in fact, there are also the Under 20 World Athletics Championships lightweight (Nairobi, 17-22 August), the men's and women's European Championships Volleyball (dates to be confirmed), the Men's World Cup Handball (Egypt, 14-31 January), various skiing events (Biathlon World Championships on 9-21 February, Alpine Skiing, Nordic Skiing and Ski Jumping World Championships), the Women's Rugby (New Zealand, September 18-October 16), Skeleton and Bobsleigh World Cups, even the Snooker World Cup (billiards), which will be played in the English city of Sheffield from April 17 to May 3. In short, a real sports binge, for all tastes, in the hope that Covid, this time, can no longer represent any impediment.
