On the Scene -- Tokyo Gears Up for Close 2016 Olympics Race

Tokyo Governor General Shintaro Ishihara speaks at a reception for the media. (ATR/Panasonic:Lumix)As the IOC Evaluation Commission for the 2016 Olympics prepares to get down to business in the Japanese capital, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara acknowledges the bid race to win the Games will go right to the wire.

“From today, at long last the real race is going to begin,” Ishihara, president of Tokyo 2016, told journalists gathered at a media reception in the city Wednesday. Saying he had competed in many difficult races in his days as a yachtsman through the 1980s and 1990s, he added through an interpreter, “I have never participated in such a race where it is so difficult to read the direction of the wind.”

Ishihara’s comments came in a five-minute address to around 100 reporters, all but a handful of whom were Japanese, at the reception held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. He spoke mostly in his native tongue but said a few words in English.

“We would like to present Tokyo not only to the evaluation commission but also to media members,” he said, adding that he hoped reporters would look at the city “dispassionately” with “broad reporting of what you find in Tokyo.”

Ishihara has already met the members of the IOC commission and has pledged to play Leaders of the Tokyo bid crack open a barrel of sake with help from members of the media. (ATR/Panasonic:Lumix)a “hands-on” role during its visit. One of his main roles in meetings with Olympic experts this week is to communicate the governmental and public support for the bid along with Tokyo’s financial guarantees. On Friday, he will lead commission members on a venue tour.

Tokyo 2016 bid leaders were in upbeat mood on the eve of the opening of the IOC commission inspection.

Looking relaxed and in good humor, bid chair and CEO Ichiro Kono told Around the Rings that preparations for the IOC visit and rehearsals for bid presentations to the commission had gone well. He said he was confident “as always.”

Japanese Olympic Committee President Tsunekazu Takeda insisted there was a good feeling in the Tokyo 2016 camp.

“Everything is going well. We have prepared so many things to show to them how we can organize the Tokyo Games,” he told ATR.

“Yes, we are feeling good. There is only one gold… no silver or bronze. It is a big challenge of course.”

After arriving Tuesday in Tokyo, the IOC commission formally begins work Thursday morning in Tokyo with the first round of presentations by the 2016 bid team.

The 13-member panel will hear from theIOC members from Japan Shunichiro Okano and Chiharu Igaya. (ATR/Panasonic:Lumix)bidcommittee on the general concept of the bid, the vision for a Tokyo Olympics, the venues, Olympic Village, accommodation, transport and the environment.

Friday is set aside for a tour of the venues, the only day the group will venture away from their base at the Okura Hotel.

The Okura, considered one of Tokyo’s more genteel hotels, is a low-rise built for the 1964 Olympics in the Roppongi area of the city, close to the venues the IOC delegation will visit.

With more than 100 members of the domestic media accredited for the IOC visit, the meeting should get plenty of coverage in Japan. International media who have travelled to Tokyo number about 20, close to the same figure for the Chicago visit of the IOC last week.

Like Chicago, the IOC group may have to contend with some wet weather when they venture out for the venue tour Friday, with a good chance of rain in the forecast. However, unlike Chicago, only rain, not snow, is predicted.

With reporting from Mark Bisson and Ed Hula in Tokyo.

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