By YUSUKE SAITO/ Staff Writer
October 10, 2021 at 13:25 JST
A tear-off calendar that says Oct. 11 is Sports Day, a national holiday (Yusuke Saito)
The government has reminded the public that Oct. 11 is not a national holiday, despite what calendars might say.
Normally, the second Monday of October is Sports Day.
But the government pushed up this national holiday to July 23 and moved the July 19 Marine Day holiday to July 22 to create a four-day weekend for the start of the Tokyo Olympic Games.
“May I remind you that Oct. 11 is a normal weekday even if a calendar says it is ‘Sports Day.’ Please tell people around you, too,” the Cabinet Office said on its Twitter account on Oct. 5.
The confusion concerning calendars stems from the postponement of the Tokyo Games in 2020.
The government enacted a special measures law regarding the Olympics to change the dates of the national holidays to coincide with the scheduled Opening Ceremony in 2020.
However, it had to revise the law to reflect the new dates after the event was delayed for one year because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The revisions were enacted in November 2020.
At that time, the printing process for 2021 calendars and datebooks had begun, and it was too late for printing companies to reflect the new dates for the national holidays in items already on sale.
Posters on social media expressed sorrow on Oct. 9 after learning that there would be no long weekend.
“Until yesterday, I thought Monday would be a national holiday,” one wrote.
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