Bach and IOC: No Olympic city ever as ready as Tokyo

TOKYO — IOC President Thomas Bach and other International Olympic Committee members are calling Tokyo the best prepared host city in memory.

Still, there are obstacles ahead for the 2020 Games, though small by the standards of the corruption-plagued Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016.

John Coates, the head of an IOC inspection team, wrapped up three days of meetings in Tokyo on Wednesday and said the city’s summer heat is a growing worry.

Organizers are proposing to start the marathon between 5:30 and 6 a.m., and have moved up morning rugby matches by 90 minutes to play in the cooler air. Mountain biking will be contested later in the afternoon for the same reason.

Organizers are also struggling to keep the $5.3 billion operating budget balanced with heatrelated solutions driving up costs.

This is the privately funded budget for running the games themselves and separate from billions more that governments are spending to prepare the city.

“The organizing committee and the people of Japan remain on track to deliver spectacular Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Coates said.

Yoshiro Mori, the president of organizing committee, was sitting alongside and was cautious about the plaudits.

“We should not be overconfident about such praise,” he said through an interpreter. “We still should buckle down very firmly. … They praise us, they give us a good report card. But in addition to that I want to be better.”