IOC VP John Coates has “urged Tokyo to consider moving more events to venues outside the capital, including one hundreds of kilometers away, in a bid to rein in spending” for the 2020 Summer Games, according to Elaine Lies of REUTERS. Rising labor and construction costs have forced Tokyo to rethink its plans for 10 venues it intended to build for the Games, “contravening its promise that virtually all events would take place within 8 km (5 miles)” of the Olympic village. Coates said, “(The IOC) has come out and specifically said that we should make the maximum use of existing facilities, and that, so far as I am concerned, overrides the 8km philosophy which we had as part of the bid. … We have suggested to the organizing committee that for the preliminaries for basketball, just as for football, they may care to look at cities like Osaka that might have large venues." Osaka is some 400 km (255 miles) west of Tokyo. Planners allotted $1.5B for venues in Tokyo's Olympics bid but that estimate “more than doubled” late last year after recalculation. Such budget worries mean plans for a new basketball arena “may be dropped in favor of an existing venue” about 25 km (17 miles) out of Tokyo, with badminton moving a similar distance outside the city (REUTERS, 11/19).
