Japan PM Shinzo Abe's hopes of using the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to boost the int'l prestige of his country -- and his leadership -- "are only causing him Olympian-sized headaches," according to Kirk Spitzer of USA TODAY. This week, Abe announced that Japan "selected a new traditional and lower-cost design for the Olympics stadium in response to widespread complaints that the previous plan was too futuristic looking and the astronomical cost " -- $2.2B -- was too extravagant. The change in designs means that "the new stadium will not be ready for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, as originally planned." A senior government official "was forced to resign after the cancellation, and Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party has called for the chief of the sports association that manages the stadium project to go, as well." The change in designs "is the latest bump in the road for the Tokyo Olympics effort." Earlier this year, Olympics planners "were forced to cancel plans for several other new Olympics arenas and venues as part of a cost-cutting effort." Public broadcaster NHK reported last week that estimates for staging the 2020 Games nonetheless "have climbed" to $15B -- six times the original estimate. In "another embarrassment," organizers in September "were forced to scrap the Tokyo Games’ new logo after a Belgian designer charged that it was copied from a logo he had produced for a theater in Liege two years earlier" (USA TODAY, 12/25). In an editorial, the ASAHI SHIMBUN wrote it "is time for Japan's Olympic authorities to recover the public trust they lost for their mismanagement of the initial stadium design plans and the selection of the Olympic logo."
The government, the Olympic organizing committee and the Japan Sport Council, which is in charge of managing the stadium, "should understand that they cannot afford to make another mistake, and that they must ensure complete fairness and transparency in every process." The JSC and others "must get their act together." They "must start by truly heeding public opinion, and then explain every process carefully and thoroughly" (ASAHI SHIMBUN, 12/23).
