IOC may move some Tokyo 2020 Olympic events to South Korea
Depriving Japan of the events risks provoking a backlash from the Tokyo 2020 organisers, and would make a mockery of the city's vow to hold a "compact" Games, The Guardian reports.
Kyodo News and the Asahi Shimbun on Tuesday cited unnamed sources as saying that the events could be held in the South Korean city of Chungju - one of the venues for the 2014 Asian Games - if organisers and Tokyo's governor, Yuriko Koike, fail to agree on a site in Japan.
The option of moving the sports out of the country is reportedly being considered after a panel of experts Koike set up to review costs recently proposed moving the rowing and canoe sprint several hundred miles from the capital to a venue in north-east Japan, rather than building a new venue in Tokyo Bay.
The panel also suggested renovating existing venues in Tokyo for volleyball and swimming and scrapping plans to construct new stadia for the sports. It put the cost of hosting Tokyo 2020 at 3 trillion yen (£23bn), four times the original estimate and almost three times higher than London 2012.
Koike became Tokyo's first female governor in July after promising to slash wasteful spending. But by targeting the Olympics as one area in which savings could be made, she risks alienating Games organisers and sports federations that have called for rowing, swimming and volleyball to be kept in Tokyo.
In a meeting with the IOC president, Thomas Bach, in Tokyo on Tuesday, Koike said the public supported her economy drive. "When I won the election two months ago, I swore to the public that the spending for the Olympics and Paralympics needed to be reviewed," Koike said, according to Kyodo.
Koike said she would conclude her review of the three Olympic venues by the end of the month.
Photograph: Franck Robichon/EPA
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