Tokyo to propose moving more venues for Olympics

TOKYO (AP) – Tokyo’s original plans for a compact Olympics in 2020 continue to fall by the wayside.

A Tokyo government panel is set to propose moving more venues outside of the city – including hundreds of kilometers (miles) away – in order to save money, the latest in a series of changes since the Japanese capital was awarded the games three years ago.

Among the venues being reviewed are those for volleyball, swimming, rowing and canoe sprint, Kyodo news agency reported Wednesday.

Public broadcaster NHK said the panel would propose moving rowing and canoeing to Tome City, about 440 kilometers (270 miles) northeast of Tokyo in the prefecture of Miyagi. Tome was one of several cities severely affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The city is approximately 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Sendai, which is a three-hour train ride from Tokyo.

Details of the proposed changes are expected to be made public Thursday at a meeting of a taskforce for metropolitan government reform.

The changes would require approval of the International Olympic Committee and the individual international sports federations.

The government panel was set up earlier this month by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, who is determined to reduce the soaring costs.

Tokyo won the right to host the games in 2013 by promising a compact bid with 28 of the 31 competition venues within an eight-kilometer (5-mile) radius of the Olympic Village. Originally, only shooting, modern pentathlon and one football venue were to be outside the eight-kilometer radius.

Already, venues for basketball, taekwondo and cycling have been moved outside of Tokyo to maximize existing facilities. Cycling was moved to Izu, some 145 kilometers (90 miles) southwest of the capital.

Tokyo organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori acknowledged in July that the cost of building seven temporary venues for the Olympics had surged to an estimated $2.6 billion, up from an initial estimate of $690 million.

Mori said the original figures were the result of sloppy calculations which he blamed on the Tokyo metropolitan government and the Japanese Olympic Committee.

The organizing committee hasn’t disclosed an official estimate of the overall costs but has acknowledged it will be considerably higher than the $3.5 billion that was forecast in the bid.

Preparations for the games have been plagued by a series of scandals involving the new national stadium, the official logo and allegations of bribery in the bidding process.

Work on the new national stadium has fallen behind schedule because the government abandoned an original design amid spiraling costs. The total costs for staging the Olympics are shared by the organizing committee, the Tokyo municipal government and the national government.