New Tokyo Budget Cuts Reach $280 Million

(ATR) The IOC and Tokyo 2020 have settled on $280 million in cuts to the budget for the Olympics and Paralympics next July and August.

The IOC Executive Board approved the cuts as part of the measures being taken to lower operational costs of the Games in the face of rising expenses to counter the coronavirus pandemic.

IOC President Thomas Bach called the reductions "significant", observing that larger cuts have already been made in the lead up to the Olympics that have saved billions. Regardless of the savings, Bach says the athlete experience will not be affected.

That includes the Opening Ceremony, one of the most costly events of the Games.

"It is the opportunity for the athletes to march in the Opening Ceremony along with their Olympic team. Then there is also the significant protocol part of the Olympic Opening Ceremony. All these reasons, together with the fact that these opening ceremonies are normally followed by more than one billion people around the world, led to the joint decision with the organizing committee that we should maintain the format of this Opening Ceremony, while the content may be adjusted one way or the other.

"What is important for all the other measures being taken is that we should not touch and will not touch on the athletes experience," said Bach.

IOC Olympic Games executive director Christoph Dubi noted that the ceremony is a massive logistic operation ". He says consideration is being given to reducing those demands as a way to save on costs.

Dubi says the creative director of the show is now reviewing the ceremony "to adjust it to make it a sign of the times".

Bach said he had a "fruitful" phone call with the new Prime Minister of Japan recently in which both affirmed their confidence in the staging of the Olympics and Paralympics next year. Bach did not say when he would make his next trip to Japan. He last visited a year ago and since then travel restrictions from the pandemic have cut off visits to Japan. This week World Athletics president Sebastian Coe, also an IOC member, will be the first international federation leader from outside Japan to visit the Olympic city since the corona pandemic started.

Venturing into the realm of diplomacy and sport, the IOC president expressed concern about complaints from athletes in Belarus that they have become targets of the government for speaking out against Alexander Lukashenko, recently re-elected president of the country. Lukashenko, who is also titular president of the Belarus NOC, is facing vocal opposition to his re-election within the country and abroad.

"The IOC will also investigate whether Olympic Solidarity scholarships have been directed toward their approved recipients... Making sure this is happening without any discrimination to the recipients," Bach said.

Bach said the organization "neither has the mandate or the power" to affect political matters in a sovereign nation. But the IOC leader said that if an NOC should infringe upon the requirements of the Olympic Charter, the IOC does have the power to levy sanctions.

Those limits of the IOC also apply to the case of the Iranian wrestler Navid Afkari, executed last month for murder of a security guard during anti-government protests in 2018. Bach told reporters Wednesday that he had personally written Iranian leaders to deplore the punishment handed down to Afkari, but there was little more the IOC could do.

The IOC Executive Board has confirmed the deadline for candidates to run for IOC president is November 30. The election will take place at the IOC Session planned for March in Athens. The election is scheduled at that time to avoid conflict with the Olympic Games in Tokyo in July.

IOC president Thomas Bach is expected to be the only candidate, eligible to serve another four years in office. Elections for IOC EB seats will take place at the IOC Session next July in Tokyo.

Homepage photo: Christophe Moratal/IOC

Reported by Ed Hula.