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A few weeks after Tokyo officials expressed concerned over the sky-rocketing costs of hosting the 2020 Olympic Games, IOC President Thomas Bach has stepped in to work with officials on achieving a “significant reduction” in costs.
According to a report from USA Today, Bach arrived in Japan to tension between the Olympic organizers and Tokyo’s recently elected governor Yuriko Koike. Koike has pushed to cut costs of the Olympic Games by proposing that sports be moved from the planned new venues to venues that already exist. This includes moving the rowing competition to a site located hundreds of miles outside the capital.
Bach explained to USA Today that,
I think it is in the interest of Japan, Tokyo and IOC that we do not change the rules of the competition after the election. By respecting these principles we can very well look into the budget of Tokyo 2020 and we can look at the cost. We can see together how we can make it even more feasible.
A proposal was made by Bach that the International Olympic Committee, Tokyo organizers, city government, and Japan’s central government work together to agree on additional cost reductions once Tokyo releases a final report on the estimated costs (due as early as November).
Bach continued, noting,
The Tokyo metropolitan government will finalize its internal study, then we’ll discuss it with the other stakeholders…and then I am confident that you will see a significant reduction in the cost compared to what we have seen so far from the press.
The preliminary report released by Tokyo estimated that the overall cost of hosting the Olympics could exceed $30 billion if no cuts are made.
Tokyo was originally granted the right to host the Games in 2013 when they promised that 28 of the 31 competition venues would be located within a five-mile radius of the Olympic Village, with only shooting, modern pentathlon, and one of the soccer venues to be outside of that radius.
Already working to reduce the costs of the Games, basketball, taekwondo, and cycling have been moved outside of the city to reduce the costs, with cycling moving to the city of Izu, located approximately 90 miles southwest of the city.
Their most dramatic proposal has been the moving of rowing and canoeing to an existing facility approximately 250 miles north of Tokyo.
Read the full report from USA Today here.
What happens to the games if a United States TV network doesn’t pay billions to broadcast the games?
Is the IOC pricing them self out of future games?
That’s why LA is the perfect choice for 2024.
Should the summer Olympics be held at the same
place every 4 years?
Will cities ever bid for future Olympics?
There are plenty of fools (Athens) and tyrants (China and Putin) willing to host the games. But, no rational city should.