Tokyo – The spreading virus from China has been reported in more than 60 countries and puts the Tokyo Olympics at risk.

The summer Olympics are to open on July 24 – less than five months away. The Paralympics follow on Aug. 25.

International Olympic Com-mittee President Thomas Bach told Japanese news media that the “IOC is fully committed to have the opening ceremony there on July 24th in Tokyo.” He declined to speculate about a postponement, cancellation, or any combination of those possibilities.

Bach told the Japanese: “I’m not ready to add fuel to the flames of speculation there in any way.”

However, senior IOC member Dick Pound suggested that Tokyo and the IOC had roughly until the end of May to announce a decision. Pound said there’s no decision so far and stressed talks were nearly constant with the World Health Organization.

Pound has characterized the virus as the “elephant” in the room.

“You just don’t postpone something on the size and scale of the Olympics,” Pound said. “There are so many moving parts; so many countries, so many different seasons and competitive seasons, television seasons. You can’t say: ‘We’ll do it in October.’ It’s a big, big, big decision and you just can’t take it until you have all the reliable facts on which to base it.”

Seiko Hashimoto, Japan’s Olympic minister, told the county’s upper house of parliament that the contract to hold the Tokyo Games only specifies the event has to be held during 2020.

“The IOC has the right to cancel the games only if they are not held during 2020,” Hashimoto told parliament. “This can be interpreted to mean the games can be postponed as long as they are held during the calendar year.”

There could be changes to the torch relay, which is set to open March 26 in Fukushima prefecture, northeast of Tokyo. Training for Tokyo’s 80,000 unpaid volunteers for the Olympics has been postponed until at least May.

Officials have announced that an Olympic baseball qualifying event was postponed from April to June. It will be held in Taiwan as scheduled, but on June 17-21 instead of April 1-5. The World Baseball Softball Conference said it was because of “player, personnel and spectator health and safety measures against the spread of the coronavirus.”

Olympic qualifiers also have been moved from China. Bach said that many Chinese athletes are training elsewhere: the table tennis team is in Qatar, the women’s basketball team is in Croatia, and wrestlers are in Serbia.

The modern Olympics dating from 1896 have been canceled three times during the two World Wars, and faced boycotts in 1976, 1980 and 1984.

Omaha is set to host the Olympic swim trials June 21-28 at the CHI Health Center Omaha.