Cost-Oversight Panel Urges Use Of Existing Swim Pools For Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

Swimming at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games could be held at existing facilities such as the Tatsumi International Pool if organisers adopt the cost-cutting measures proposed by a panel tasked with keeping Japan’s event within striking distance of an estimated $4.5 billion budget.

The Tokyo panel today urged organisers to consider scrapping plans to build brand new facilities for swimming, volleyball and rowing/canoeing as part of measures to prevent the Games budget from ballooning to a massive $29 billion envisaged just three years after Tokyo won the bid on the back of a suggested $4.5 billion war chest when it beat Madrid and Istanbul for the right to host the 2020 Olympics. That figure soon gave way to one of 734 billion yen ($7.24 billion).

Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike was recently elected on the back of a campaign to rein in a budget spiralling out of control. Once in office, he commissioned  a review of expenses.

“Given the current situation, costs could run over 3 trillion yen ($29 billion),” the panel writes in the report issued today.

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

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