2020 Summer Games
What: Games of the XXXII Olympiad (official name)
When: July 24-Aug. 9 (soccer and softball begin July 22)
Where: Tokyo, Japan (first time since 1964)
Stadium: New National
Nations: Athletes: Events:
Returning events: New events:
New disciplines in existing sports: 3-on-3 basketball, freestyle BMX, Madison cycling
Torch: Olympic flame will arrive in Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture, from Greece on March 26
Slogan: Discover Tomorrow Logo: Ring in an indigocolored checkerboard pattern
Mascot: Miraitowa, a mouselike figure with large ears but no tail that is described as “very athletic” and has the ability to teleport anywhere instantly. Name is a combination of the words “mirai” (future) and “towa” (eternity).
Sources: renovation. The centerpiece is the $1.25 billion National Stadium, which will open at the end of the year, and the Olympic Village for more than 10,000 athletes on the edge of Tokyo Bay.
Tokyo will showcase four new sports — karate, skateboarding, sports climbing and surfing. Two more — baseball and softball — are returning after being dropped following the 2008 Olympics.
Exact costs — what are and are not Olympic expenses — are difficult to sort out. But Tokyo is spending about $20 billion to get ready, 70 percent of which is taxpayer money.
IOC President Thomas Bach has repeatedly called Tokyo’s preparations “the best” in history. But there have been glitches and links to corruption.
Anti-games backlash
A group of anti-olympic activists,manyfromoutside Japan, has held small protests and other events in the last few days under the Japanese title “Hangorin no Kai’ — roughly “No Olympics.” They question Olympic spending and have raised local housing and environmental issues.
Tsunekazu Takeda, the head of the Japanese Olympic Committee, was forced to resign this year when he was implicated in a vote-buying scheme tolandthegames.hehas denied wrongdoing, but acknowledged he signed off on about $2 million that French investigators allege went to buy votes of some IOC members.
Tokyo organizers were also forced to redesign their logo when the original draft faced charges of plagiarism, and an international labor union has alleged work-safety violations at Olympic venues, largely regarding migrant labor.
A futuristic design for the new stadium by thelate British architect Zaha Hadid was scrapped when costs soared to $2 billion. Japanese architect Kengo Kuma was chosen instead, with a design focused on wood lattice and greenery that will be finished by the end of the year.
Baade says the games have reached an “inflection point,” with cities realizing short-term benefits are scant and long-term payoffs unclear.
“There are fewer cities and nations wiling to compete in this international auction of the games,” he said. “And, in absence of this, the IOC,” is not going to be able to wring the kind of concessions from potential host cities that they did before.”