North Korea will not participate in the Tokyo Olympics

North Korea decided to cut almost all of its ties with the outside world in 2020 to avoid an influx of coronavirus cases. The country has not reported a major Covid-19 outbreak and there is no evidence that it did, although experts doubt Pyongyang’s claim that the country has not seen a single case of the virus.

Foreign diplomats and aid workers have also fled the country en masse in recent months, citing goods shortages and extreme restrictions on daily life, according to the Russian embassy in Pyongyang.

According to a report published on Tuesday on DPRK Sports, a state-run media focused on sports affairs, North Korean officials announced that the country would not participate in this summer’s Games to “protect players from the global public health crisis. caused by Covid- 19 “

The decision was taken by the Olympic Committee of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), which held a videoconference meeting with committee members and sports officials on March 25 in Pyongyang, DPRK Sports reported.

The Games are scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8. The Paralympics continue from August 24 to September 5.

This is the first time that North Korea has lost the Olympics since it boycotted the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. In 2018, the leaders of the two Koreas agreed to host the Olympic Games in 2032, but the inter-Korean discussion on the issue ended in 2019.

The Olympic Games were originally scheduled for 2020, but organizers were forced to postpone the Olympics for the first time in the event’s history due to the pandemic.

The first event of the Games, the Olympic Torch Relay, officially launched on March 25. The Olympic Flame is now on its way to the country, carried by 10,000 runners across 47 prefectures on a 121-day journey from Fukushima to Tokyo.

But the resumption of the Games was a controversial choice, with increasing logistical challenges and concerns about the pandemic. Officials in Japan have expressed concern about a possible “fourth wave” in the pandemic and the city of Osaka has canceled its Olympic Torch relay events, citing an increase in the number of cases.

Although public support for the event in Japan continues to decline, organizers have moved on. The Games are likely to be very different this year, however. Last month, the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee said that international viewers would not enter Japan due to the prevalence of coronaviruses at home and abroad. The Paralympics will also not receive fans who travel, the committee said.

CNN’s Matias Grez contributed to this report.