IOC, Koike to set up 4-party review panel on 2020 Olympic costs

If they fail to reach an agreement on the Tokyo site, known as the Sea Forest Waterway, the IOC would even consider hosting the events in the South Korean city of Chungju, where rowing events were held for the 2014 Asian Games, Japanese media reports said earlier on Tuesday.

This is the IOC's version of a outright threat regarding their feelings and position regarding the planned changes in venues.

This would be a huge slap in the face to Tokyo actually to Koike and they are throwing the gauntlet down back at her and telling her in their own way that if she doesnt or isnt willing to bend then the events will be shared with Korea.

The issue of national pride as just been thrown at her.

International Stadium Yokohama is the biggest stadium in Japan, looks brand new, and using it would save us taxpayers hundreds of billions of yen.

Google it if you don't know about it.

The Olympics are now just a financial fraud and taxpayers are the victims.

They were forced to scrap an initial design for the centerpiece National Stadium, site of the opening and closing ceremonies, because it was too expensive

It was too expensive because they didn't bother to actually research how much building a stadium would cost, before they came up with a price at which they said they could do it. Then when reality set in, they realized that the number they had come up with was fantasy, and that since they hadn't given the architect a budget, the stadium that was designed was not even close to doable for the price they had fantasized.

Complete and utter mismanagement.

And now they are talking of moving venues to Korea - for an Olympics that was sold on being in a tiny area.

This is getting ridiculous.

So, here we are with three years to go and there is talk of moving events to another country. I distinctly remember Abe boasting how the Tokyo Olympics would be the best in modern history. It's looking like it's going to be the biggest far cup in modern history!

Somewhere in a government office in Istanbul: Hahahhahaha! Hahaha! Ha ha haha!

Your first Tokyo Governor and his cronies lied to get the Olympics with fanciful promises. He resigned due to a financial scandal.

Your next Governor and his cronies (most of the same cronies) paid for plans, scrapped plans, paid for new plans and these new plans were also a fraud. That governor has also resigned in disgrace because of a financial scandal.

Now, your city is also in a crapstorm because of a fish market and that money pit.

And you're in a business with a crooked entity in the IOC who refuses to adapt to new times and common sense that a country can't build state of the art billion dollar facilities for every single sport only to be used in this large capacity once.

If I was Tokyo, or Koike, I'd play hardball and say, Nope. We're holding these events at good, but used facilities and if these Olympic athletes don't want to come, then don't come, but you're not holding us hostage. We'll put on the best games we can where we can hold them.

Not that I'm rooting for Tokyo, cuz it's their fault for trying to sell a lie to begin with.

There is some talk of holding the rowing in South Korea to cut costs. So the choice becomes squandering money or squandering the home field advantage.

The cost overrun to host these olympics is obscene, irresponsible and outrageous. Imagine what just the money wasted through impotent management could do to support the millions who live on or below the poverty line in this country. What a shame. I could never feel any pride or joy in hosting these games knowing the scheming, lying, political mess.

what a ridiculous story.... Rather, it would make Koreans annoyed/confused so much.

This is not the first time the IOC has done this. They have threatened the Koreans with exactly the same thing regarding their problem and complaining about building a bobsleigh course. The IOC said mentioned that the event could be help in Nagano, and boom the track is getting built. The IOC are just thugs in expensive suits.

The IOC are just thugs in expensive suits.

Nobody wants to pay for the Olympics anymore and why should they?

"Two months earlier, Oslo had cancelled its bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics because there was so little public support for it. Earlier in the year, Stockholm withdrew for similar reasons. Krakow also cancelled after a referendum found almost 70% of residents opposed the bid. For Munich’s bid, the figure was nearer 60%. For Davos, it was 53%. In Barcelona, the mayor deferred until 2026, then canned the plan altogether. A similar thing happened in Quebec City. So from nine candidates, the IOC was left with two potential hosts. One was Almaty, in the dictatorship of Kazakhstan, and the other was Beijing, not hitherto noted as one of the world’s great winter sports resorts. Beijing won, though most of the events will be held 140 miles away in Chongli".

The people of Boston, Toronto, Rome and Hamburg have already said a resounding no to hosting.

"Christopher Gaffney, a senior research fellow at the University of Zurich, is a prominent voice in the anti-Olympic movement, “Wherever we see an educated population that has a relatively free press, relatively high levels of governmental transparency, and that has put it up for a referendum, in every one of those cases we have seen the Olympics be rejected. Without exception.”

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/27/biggest-threat-future-olympic-games-rio-2016-ioc-thomas-bach-hosts

The idea that the IOC can threaten and blackmail Tokyo into spending billions of dollars on facilities the city neither wants nor needs may seem incredible, but that's exactly what's happening here. Tokyo pays and the IOC takes the profits back to Switzerland.

All the athletes together housed in the Olympic Village reflects the ideal defined in the structure and authority of the charter. The keynote/centrepiece of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games bid is that 28 of the 33 competition venues in Tokyo are within 8 km (4.97 miles) of the Olympic Village. End of!!!

The IOC voted to select the host city of the 2020 Summer Olympics on 7 September 2013. And yet here we are in October 2016 and there is no definable delivery authority!!.

Yuriko Koike hijacked the enter process as part of a political campaign for the office of Tokyo Governor. Look, this ludicrous train wreck farce has to have a line draw though it. 3 trillion yen ($29 billion)!! And the city struggles to provide basic child care facilities.

Walk away, even if London has to change its name to Tokyo for three weeks summer 2020, 82% of the facilities are already in place. Just let Government of Japan take over London for 3 weeks.

And these panels are volunteers or are being funded by the taxpayer?

Let's vote 2017 the no panel year!!!!

Hello Alfie,

Loved your stories from the north. Japan only has the Olympics because if their "estimate" of the cost, their "compact" bid, and the fact that their main rivals either had no money or were insecure due to Islamic insurgency. The IOC should have no ability at this stage to bully Japan into spending 29 billion dollars and rising on their 8 billion dollar Olympics.

Koike to J. Gov: "Let's split the fee..."

@Nessie

Wow, I didn't know the ROK might hold some events. I agree with you. Oh and one of the 4 is at a definite mental disadvantage.

Makes this article from 2013 all the more interesting...

https://www.japantoday.com/category/kuchikomi/view/korean-group-working-to-subvert-tokyos-2020-olympic-bid

What if the RoK says we dont want it, given the upcoming winter games and the cost of that. Id say that the IOC needs to be told take it or leave it. Mori will be no use so it is the Governor vs the IOC. May the best woman win!

@ itsonlyrocknroll

Just let Government of Japan take over London for 3 weeks.

No thanks, they make our shower look down right competent! We paid for one Olympics (which many if not the majority didn't want) we don't want to squander yet more money at the whim of a bunch of corrupt egomaniacs in the IOC.

Since when does the ioc care except when they don't get their outrageous salaries. Let Japan spend what they want to and where they want.

It doesn't make sense that the IOC would accept a SK venue but not the Miyagi venue which is closer. IOC is using national pride against Tokyo to stomach the costs for a local games. It may be a bridge too far. If the events are shared then the costs would be lowered so that would indicate to future cities that the Olympics are too expensive, resulting in fewer future bids. They're not helping themselves sell it as the Olympics are too big.

Hi englisc aspyrgend, They, who ever,they are happen to be, delivered in London 2012 for a £9.3 billion weighed today at £13.5bn. ODA is here.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/olympic-delivery-authority-report

Tokyo ODA is nonexistent. The weakness in the organisation is distinguished in the process and framework of the original bid, there is literally no development of a viable financial and accounting model. Review both

High-level Sustainability Plan (PDF: 271.6 KB)....

Fundamental Principles for the Sustainable Sourcing Code (PDF: 143.7 KB)

https://tokyo2020.jp/en/games/sustainability/

It is a wish list without any sustainable structure. Governor Yuriko Koike has remarkably managed to make the hole deeper.

I am all for Tokyo hosting the Olympics, it will be good for the so needed internationalization we talk so much in Japanese forums. However, what IOC is doing is blackmailing Tokyo, plainly. IMO, Koike should just make her statement: We will have all the games IN Japan, and whenever we want. Or we give up the 2020s games. Simply as that. IOC is already in boiling waters after first-tier cities are giving up bids in a row. Also, IOC has said many times that the way games are currently hold (build a new, billion dollar mini city that last two weeks, and good luck after that) is over. Shame on IOC.

More like criminal I would say. The "bidders" knew this ahead of time in their desire to get the Olympics Tokyo alone has a GDP of over $1.6 TRILLION (US) and and enough in savings if memory serves me right, to pay for the entire Olympics by itself under the initial estimated costs.

Now however the costs have exploded and the national government wants Tokyo to foot the bill, which means the taxpayers get skull-fricked in the process.

Koike needs to hold her ground and dont let the IOC bully her into agreeing to wasting cash!

Thugs or not, right now all they are doing is just trying to hold Japan to what it agreed to do. I am unable to find that very damnable.

The athletes come way down the 'pecking order', after the Lords of the Rings, the Olympic family, local Olympic committees, high-paying sponsors and broadcasters, advertisers, copyright enforcement officials, and then, maybe the athletes.

Spare us the political mischief-makers, and skulduggery. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike is a being cynically briefed against, more than likely from within the ranks of ruling LDP government. Undermined from the start. This method of underhanded press briefings is an attempt to link Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike to any future failure to find compromise. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike should smartly, pin failures to model efficiencies of scale where the blame truly lies, Olympic Minster Tamayo Marukawa.

The IOC has suggested the possibility of moving rowing to an existing site in South Korea in case there is no resolution over the Japanese venue, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported, quoting unidentified Japanese sources as saying. The South Korean venue in Chungiu City hosted the 2013 world championships and rowing at the 2014 Asian Games

Asked about the report at Tokyo's Haneda airport, Bach said: "I will not comment on any kind of rumors." Japanese Olympic Minister Tamayo Marukawa told reporters she could not confirm the report.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201610190005.html

I don't believe for a moment the IOC would make any such suggestions, it is not in there remit to do so. Governor Yuriko Koike is well within her rights to strut over to Olympic Minister Tamayo Marukawa office a dispense a damn good handbaging.

Japan clearly has the whip hand, they have (or have to find, the money), play hardball, tell the IOC either our way or no way and good luck in trying to con someone else in to footing your exorbitant bills. The ludicrously expensive way the Olympics are required to be run by the IOC has been a subject of criticism for several decades now.

Coming meeting is about cost. About creation of stadium Gvt probabbbly. cough up money to rescue so that other places in jpn will earn from foreigners. In the. Scale of Japan, probably more profitable than LA was. Japan has shinkansen,

I'm going to guess that its going to be shared with SK. After all, that's exactly what they did for the 2002 world cup. There didn't seem to be any loss of face there for japan if I remember correctly. I remember that most of my Japanese friends were happy and excited about holding a joint world cup. I don't think Japan will do it on its own. Yep, my bet is a joint JP/SK Olympic event.