Olympic endurance run and swim events shifted to early mornings

The dreaded COVID-19 might not stand in the way of the Olympics being staged next year after their 12-month postponement.

But another factor has come along to knock large parts of the original schedule for the Tokyo 2020 games off course.

While all events have already been put back by exactly one year from their originally scheduled dates, organisers have decided that the planned long-distance open-water swimming events will be among those to be staged earlier in the day than planned.

The reason is one which could have been foreseen in the original timetable, but of which the Olympics’ organisers seem to have become aware - and it’s simply the heat which competitors were likely to have faced, had the events gone ahead at their originally planned times of 7am and later local time.

All long-distance open water swimming heats and finals will now start at 6.30am, with the schedule being tweaked so that each day’s programme should finish no later than 9.10am.

The changes will affect both women’s and men’s 10km swimming events, which are due to be run on 4 and 5 August respectively.

When the athletics events get under way two days later (7 August), they will start at 7pm each evening.

Earlier starting times had already been announced for a range of other races, including the full triathlon events, according to Insidethegames.biz.

So if you want to catch the tri and open-water swimming events live, you’re going to have to be sure to set your alarm a little earlier than planned.

It had already been announced that the full marathon and race walk events were also having their venues moved, so that they could be staged in the cooler mountain air of Sapporo, more than 500 miles north of Tokyo.