IOC visits Tokyo

The 13-member International Olympic Committee evaluation team completed a final inspection of Tokyo’s 2016 bid on Sunday, April 19. Like the Chicago visit two weeks prior, the IOC held a press conference where evaluation commission chairwoman Nawal El Moutawakel reported "We were very impressed by the vision, high quality of the presentation and concept that were presented to us regarding the Tokyo bid,” the same reaction given in Chicago.

During the visit, the IOC listened to presentations and Q&A sessions on Thursday, visited the proposed venues on Friday and inspected infrastructures, transport systems and hotels during the rest of their stay, wrapping up their four-day visit on Monday.

IOC members wore special goggles at the proposed site of the Olympic Stadium to be built and given a virtual tour using computer graphics of the stadium and its surroundings.

El Moutawakel also said she is particularly impressed by the Tokyo bid offering the most compact games, with all venues within five miles of the Main Stadium. Tokyo hosted the 1964 Olympics and would use many of the same venues. Twenty-three of the proposed 34 venues already exist and land has been secured for the 11 new facilities. Five of those new venues would be remain after the Games.

Compared to Chicago’s bid that lacks unlimited financial guarantees, Tokyo is more confident of its financial security in the global economic downturn. The bid offers a government pledge to finance the Olympics if costs cannot be met. Of its $66 billion annual budget, Tokyo has secured $4 billion for a special budget in cash for the Games.

Japanese Olympic Committee President Tsunekazu Takeda said that corporate sponsors will help raise revenue to provide Olympic funding in their JOC Gold Partnership Program. Companies like Toyota Motor Corp., Asahi Breweries Ltd. and NTT Docomo Inc. will contribute funds.

"Amid this current economic crisis we will have reached 90 percent of our target if negotiations with the remaining companies are successful. This could benefit Tokyo's bid to host the 2016 Olympics," said a JOC official.

Japan Prime Minister Taro Aso, a shooting athlete in the 1976 Montreal Olympics said, “We will abide in full by every guarantee in the candidate file. We will ensure whatever needs to be done, will be done. Whatever needs to be built, will be built. Whatever needs to be financed, will be financed,” showing the IOC that Japan’s government completely supports Tokyo’s bid.

However, just like Chicago, Tokyo had its share of protestors during the IOC visit. Small opposition groups gathered and chanted “Tokyo doesn’t need the Olympics.” The “No Olympics in Tokyo” and “Objection! Ishihara’s 2016 Olympics” opposition groups met with IOC evaluator Gilbert Felli, like Chicago’s “No Games Chicago” did. The question of local support is a problem faced by every bid city.

Overall, Tokyo considers the visit a success. "I am very much satisfied with the visit by the Evaluation Commission," Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara said. "I feel that the visit raised Tokyoites' spirit to support the Olympics bid."

‘‘We were given loads of information. It will be difficult for us now to disclose all of it. But we were very comfortable with what was given to us. Tokyo did really well in the first stage and we will further study the documents that were given to us in these four days,’’ El Moutawakel said.

As to not draw any public comparisons, the IOC evaluators did a good job of keeping quiet about their bid judgments and will release an assessment report of all the bid cities on Sept. 2. A decision will be made on Oct. 2 in Copenhagen.