The 2020 Tokyo Olympics have been postponed, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first time the city was set to host the Olympics was also fraught with problems that would ultimately doomed them. In 1936,  in a rather surprise move, Tokyo was selected to host the Games of the XII Olympiad in 1940. This was the first time a non-western city had been selected as host.  Sapporo, Japan was soon also selected to host the 1940 Winter Games. However in July 1937 the Sino-Japanese War broke put , and  a call began , both   internationally and from within Japan,  for a boycott and/or to outright move the Games elsewhere. Japanese IOC officials insisted that the war would soon be over, and the Olympics would proceed as normal. Within a year, however, the war had intensified. Many international teams had announced they would boycott the Games in protest of Japan. On July 16, 1938 after an intense legislative session Japanese official Kōichi Kido announced the forfeit of the games in both Tokyo and Sapporo.

Olympic officials were already looking for a replacement, and awarded Helsinki, Finland, the runner up to Tokyo’s bid, as the new host of  the 1940 Summer Games and for  previous host Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany to immediately re-host the Winter Games, but the outbreak of war in Europe forced the cancellation of the 1940(and the 1944) Olympics altogether

Tokyo would eventually host the 1964 Summer Olympics and  Sapporo was awarded the 1972 Winter Games