After Canada became the first nation to withdraw its athletes from the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Ireland's Kellie Harrington expressed her belief that the games should now be postponed on Monday's OTB AM. 

As the International Olympic Committee allows itself a month to reach a decision on the occurrence of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, participating nations are beginning to make decisions of their own.

Canada have become the first nation to withdraw its athletes from the games; it is reported that Australia and New Zealand are considering similar action.

With the vast majority of sport across the world currently at a standstill as the uncertain spread of coronavirus continues, Ireland's Kellie Harrington, a likely medal contender at the 2020 games, believes that there is no need to wait a month for the right decision to be made.

"I think they should be postponed," she said on Monday's OTB AM, "I don't think they should be cancelled.

"I just think that [the IOC] need to make a call on that sooner rather than later because it is bad enough that [we the athletes] are stuck in our houses, but now we're stuck in our houses still trying to get training in.

"It's kind of crazy and it is really tough for some athletes to try and fit the correct training in around all of these restrictions."

25 November 2018; World Champion Kellie Harrington with her gold medal on Team Ireland's return from AIBA Women's World Boxing Championship at Dublin Airport, Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Although Kellie Harrington didn't wish to comment upon the IOC's motivation for delaying the decision for another month, she did expand upon her reasons for calling on the committee to postpone the event immediately.

"Athletes come first, people come first," she stressed. "There's no point in going out to the Olympics and having nobody to celebrate it and coming back and being brown-bread a few weeks later because you're after catching the virus."

You can watch Kellie Harrington's interview on Monday's OTB AM here.

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