Panel urges Olympic venue changes as 2020 Games costs likely to top Y3 tril

It seems Koike is doing this inherited venue better than mori originally plans. Money problems is getting obstruction. Are Nintendo, Toyota, Nissan, Matsuda, and other sport crazy companies pulled out their ads promise? There is no such roomores so I guess they just trust Koike's direction. IOC must be glad it chose Toko not trusting Tuuurky and Madrid claim they will have mann y Japanese advertisers, problemm now ii's stadium creakonnnn. Is Taisei Kennnnsetsu ready now?

I'm sure something will happen before 2020, you know, to ensure the Japanese don't lose face when these games become impossible to realise... Perhaps a little war ?

Hope no jgov people are reading this, might give them ideas.

Pity Japan did well with the Winter one.

Yeah, but what about after......not too good!

IOC should award the Olympics to a new location. Depending if there are countries that want to host them, the list is getting shorter quickly.

Pity Japan did well with the Winter one.

Gosh, I'm sure glad they nailed that American for copyright infringement! Now they can contribute about ¥5,000 to the Olympic budget. I'm sure Mori will do a great job making sure it is spend wisely.

When it won the Games, Tokyo said they would bring in economic benefits of 3 trillion yen and create 150,000 jobs.

Of course they did. Liars.

The Olympics were sold to the IOC on three main points as far as I recall:

1) All events being in a central location, allowing for easy transport between venues

2) The new stadium

3) A low cost from re-using existing venues as much as possible

Each of these three points has been thrown out the window. Events have been relocated. The stadium was scrapped. And the costs are not low.

The bait and switch Olympics.

Tokyo Gov Yuriko Koike foolishly blundered by appointing, Shinichi Ueyama , a Keio University public policy professor to chair this panel of experts that would inevitably deliver a torrent of criticism generating a unnecessarily humiliating public display of disunity between Tokyo organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori, the Tokyo metropolitan government and Japanese Olympic Committee.

So you are an advocate of Koike just shutting her mouth and letting the people of Tokyo foot the bill all for the sake of keeping the peace? Damn.....at least give me a kiss before you stick it in my butt!

It seemingly never occurred to Gov Yuriko Koike that appointing Ueyama in the first place would present a stunning loss of face because the existing plans have already approved by the IOC. An example is the proposal to move rowing and canoeing more than 400 kilometres to Tome City.

Loss of face for whom? Koike no, not at all, but then you are thinking of the collective, wait not the collective just the folks who are going to miss out making cash from these over priced games.

Tokyo Gov Yuriko Koike needs reminding that quote Tokyo won the right to host the games by presenting, promising a bid that 28 of the 31 competition venues will be within an eight-kilometre (5-mile) radius of the Olympic Village.

And it seems you need to be reminded that those games were awarded under a false premise and based upon false information. The people who made the bid should be held accountable for their making the entire country look bad, it's their fault not Koike's

They should call this the bait and switch olympics. They don't look like they will resemble what was sold at all. It's going to cost more, for less.

Is this what they call a boondoggle?

Interesting to see how many on this site hated on Koike when she was elected - well now we're seeing some good come out of her, if she's exposing this gong show.

they still don't have a solid plan with less than three years to go

I think your math is a little off.

"....it's a sport with miniscule participation in Japan."

So what? The Olympics aren't about Japan. They're about gathering the world's best athletes in a single location to compete in a range of different events. The host's responsibility is to strive to make that happen, regardless of its own national interests.

Almost agree. I'd prefer them to pick one spot on each continent (North America, South America, Oceania, Africa, Europe) and then do what you say.

Then you'd have to pick 2 don't forget winter.

Don't understand why all the venues have to be in Tokyo?

That's because the Tokyo Bid Committee made it a selling point promise that all the venues would be in the city and not spread all over the place. Now they're trying to say the venues are going to have to be re-distributed and the IOC is claiming "Bait and Switch".

Gov Yuriko Koike, by her own actions and admission has proved that Tokyo is incapable of delivering a Olympic event within a budget that its own expert panel recognizes is sustainable to public or even private finance.

It is time for the IOC to step in and move the event to London that has the infrastructure already in place, for the sake of Japan's taxpayer. Spending $29 billion is obscene when the city is unable to provide basic childcare facilities.

3 tril? Let's try for 5.

It'll be interesting to see how far Koike will be allowed to go before too many side deals are ruined and the pressure will be on to find something on her to make her quit.

I hope their efforts are futile in the face of an actual deadline of 2020 and she can keep going.

Misplanned Olympics, contaminated storage and market facility, etc etc etc. Do we really know what we are doing these days?

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Please secure your seat belts and return your seats to the upright position. Cuz...

This shxt' about to get serious!

An Olympic Delivery Authority is sorely required, similar to the organization that oversaw London 2012 for a paltry sum compared to the estimated $29 billion figure this so called panel of expert has pulled out of thin air.

Corporate report - Olympic Delivery Authority report

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

Tokyo Gov Yuriko Koike foolishly blundered by appointing, Shinichi Ueyama , a Keio University public policy professor to chair this panel of experts that would inevitably deliver a torrent of criticism generating a unnecessarily humiliating public display of disunity between Tokyo organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori, the Tokyo metropolitan government and Japanese Olympic Committee.

It seemingly never occurred to Gov Yuriko Koike that appointing Ueyama in the first place would present a stunning loss of face because the existing plans have already approved by the IOC. An example is the proposal to move rowing and canoeing more than 400 kilometres to Tome City.

Tokyo Gov Yuriko Koike needs reminding that quote Tokyo won the right to host the games by presenting, promising a bid that 28 of the 31 competition venues will be within an eight-kilometre (5-mile) radius of the Olympic Village.

Should never have bid with all the on-going effects of 2011. And you can bet that it will be a small group of companies that make the most profits. A shambles from the start. Do what they did with Expo - sent it back!

Don't understand why all the venues have to be in Tokyo? The "London" olympics had venues across the country.

Well, it is Dentsu who are behind the Olympic bid, 2-3 floors of their office block devoted to 5 ring matters.

Have they not just been cited for overcharging clients and falsification of digital data?

The rowing venue, estimated to cost 6.9 billion yen, now comes in at 49.1 billion yen, the panel noted.

This is going to cause some rowing about rowing

@Fadamor

Almost agree. I'd prefer them to pick one spot on each continent (North America, South America, Oceania, Africa, Europe) and then do what you say.

After all, it's an international event.

They should stop moving the Olympics every four years. Pick one spot, STAY in that spot, and the expenditures every four years will only be for maintenance, any additional venues required for newly added sports, and whatever costs are required to implement current technology into the pre-existing buildings.

The monorail from Haneda airport to the city passes along long, straight stretches of water. Why not use that as a rowing course? It will cost nothing as it already exists. Just give me Y1 billion as commission for the idea and you've saved Y48 billion.

Give it to London. We Brits know how to make a success of the Olympics.

August is the worst month to have it in Japan. I always get out for at least 3 weeks as the high temperatures and unbearable humidity are truly awful. Rebuild Tohoku and Kyushu disaster areas first. All under control-biggest gaff of all time and Mori the biggest buffoon of all time.

who won the bid largely on Japan’s reputation for efficiency

If it were a competitive internationalized Japanese company doing all the preparations, this argument for efficiency might be valid. But we're talking about the J-government here. And the J-gov (or any government, for that matter) ain't known for spending control and efficiency.

No offence intended to rowers, but it's a sport with miniscule participation in Japan. It makes no sense to spend hugely on a facility for the elite that will hardly be used and cost a fortune to maintain.

If you run the numbers, I'm sure you can say the thing about facilities for other Olympic sports, some very high profile ones.

This is one case where I agree with all the usual suspects.

I'd like to see the games cancelled and the boozos behind the Tokyo bid named and shamed.

Good on Koike-san for standing up to this!

Tokyo touted access to a $4.5 billion war chest when it beat Madrid and Istanbul in its successful 2013 bid for the Summer Games

This is the key here, the bidders under priced their bids to get the games as they had an eye on this war chest the wole time, probably knew that once the games were awarded there would be no going back and Tokyo would be faced with shelling out whatever they requested.

And they probably would have gotten away with it, but Koike's election has thrown a huge wrench into their greedy plans to rip the people off.

I'm wondering whether Odaiba in Tokyo Bay will remain the venue for marathon swimming and other swimming events, as planned. LOL.

"To cut back, the panel proposed reconsidering the construction of three new venues—for volleyball, swimming and rowing/canoeing—in favor of using existing venues."

The exact same thing as the old Olympic Stadium -- "Oh, we can't stop plans for new construction!", "Oh! We MUST have the new stadium!". Then they'll destroy the old venues and/or start on the new, saying, "If only we had known! How could we have known?? We should have used the OLD buildings! No one suggested it! Oh, they did? ummm... we were unaware of it."

And now they're saying costs will be more than any potential profits -- POTENTIAL profits -- meaning they will sky-rocket to four or five times the current projections.

If my math is right, 49.1 billion yen is around $450 million. That is a ridiculous amount to pay for a sport that most people won't be watching. I'm pretty sure there won't be too much use after 2020. Ticket prices will so high that no one can afford to go to the events.

Thanks Koike for doing proper research, digging deeper and finding the cause of these miscalculations and hopefully some heads will roll.

Everybody saw that coming.

What awaste of taxpayer's money. And in the meantime, Tokyo still lacks public daycare centers.

By the way they should just move the venues no matter what the IOC says. What are they going to do ? Attack Japan ?

are they digging a new river for rowing?

This is way beyond a disgrace, why is mori not either FIRED or resigning.

Just cancel the games please, I have often said on jt & negged for it when I say that "budgets" are almost ALWAYS off by several orders of magnitude, the 2020 games already the budgets are insanely off & they will skyrocket even more unless some serious management & responsibility starts to happen, very unlikely

Again why is mori even still involved in this????

Cycling in Shizuoka sounds very good to me, liking that they are throwing out a few scraps to the provinces

Stop wasting my taxes!! This money will never come back! None of the large sports events are being profitable anymore.

According to a preliminary report, released on the same day as an executive board meeting of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, overall costs could surge to more than four times original estimates of 734 billion yen. “Given the current situation, costs could run over 3 trillion yen,” the panel wrote in its report.

and

The rowing venue, estimated to cost 6.9 billion yen, now comes in at 49.1 billion yen, the panel noted.

There are three main reasons to explain such ridiculous differences:

1) They are liars and they lied from the beginning.

2) They are totally incompetent and their initial estimations came from thin air.

3) Corruption, a lot of corruption. Construction companies often linked with Yakuzas were more than happy to inflate the construction prices once they knew Tokyo got the Olympics.

All three reasons are totally compatible with Japan.

The rowing venue, estimated to cost 6.9 billion yen, now comes in at 49.1 billion yen, the panel noted.

This is just poor planning, how to you get an estimate SO WRONG, either they were pulling numbers out of a hat or no one gave a rats behind. This just is plain stupid.

They can totally afford to slip me 0.1 billion dollars and I promise I'll smile at the tourists. I'll even give directions for free.

It's pretty obvious Japan's Olympic campaign was just made up of lies to secure the games. Abe specifically stated that all the events would be held in Tokyo and he stressed this point as a major selling point. Of course, it is not true. It was a blatant lie! Now, the cost of the games is ballooning out of control and they still don't have a solid plan with less than three years to go. Abe was stating how he wanted the Tokyo games to be the best games in modern history. It is shaping up to be the greatest farce in modern history.

Tokyo touted access to a $4.5 billion war chest when it beat Madrid and Istanbul Given the current situation, costs could run over 3 trillion yen,” the panel wrote in its report. When it won the Games, Tokyo said they would bring in economic benefits of 3 trillion yen and create 150,000 jobs.

Then the olympics are going to cost more than they are worth.

They are the latest in a series of embarrassing setbacks and broken promises for organisers, who won the bid largely on Japan’s reputation for efficiency.

A reputation that is not well deserved. AT ALL.

Tokyo organisers have been grappling with a series of blunders.

That's putting it lightly. Blunders?? How about major Screw-ups??"

--

Tokyo touted access to a $4.5 billion war chest when it beat Madrid and Istanbul

Given the current situation, costs could run over 3 trillion yen,” the panel wrote in its report.

When it won the Games, Tokyo said they would bring in economic benefits of 3 trillion yen and create 150,000 jobs.

Then the olympics are going to cost more than they are worth.

They are the latest in a series of embarrassing setbacks and broken promises for organisers, who won the bid largely on Japan’s reputation for efficiency.

A reputation that is not well deserved. AT ALL.

Tokyo organisers have been grappling with a series of blunders.

That's putting it lightly. Blunders?? How about major F##K-ups??

6.9 billion yen to 49.1 billion yen needs thorough investigation. No 'the exchange rate changed'-type excuses can cover such a ridiculously wrong estimate.