Tokyo Games won’t confirm added costs reported at $3-B

TOKYO — Organizers of the delayed Tokyo Olympics have declined to confirm widely circulated reports in Japan that the costs of the one- year postponement will be about $3 billion.

The estimates have been published in the last several days by some of Japan’s topcirculation newspapers, the national broadcaster NHK, and the Japanese news agency Kyodo. All are citing similar figures and unidentified sources close to the games.

“We are in the process of assessing the additional costs associated with the postponement of the games due to Covid-19 and therefore are not able to comment on any details at this time,” Tokyo organizers said Monday in a statement.

The statement did not challenge any of the reports.

The Tokyo Games are becoming very expensive.

The official cost of putting on the Tokyo Olympics is $12.6 billion. However, a government audit last year said it was probably twice that much. All but $5.6 billion is public money.

Tokyo said the games would cost $7.3 billion when it won the bid in 2013.

The $3 billion for the delay only adds to the totals. A University of Oxford study published early this year — calculated before the postponement — said Tokyo was the most expensive Summer Olympics on record and the meter is still running.

The Yomiuri newspaper and Kyodo on Sunday detailed added costs of 200 billion yen, about $2 billion, to renegotiate venues leases, pay staff salaries, and cover other operational expenditure.

NHK and the Asahi newspaper on Monday said another 100 billion yen, about $1 billion, was needed for countermeasures against Covid- 19. This could include the cost of vaccines, rapid testing, and countless precautions to guard against the coronavirus.

The reported cost of the delay because of

the pandemic is in line with repeated estimates of between $2 billion and $3 billion in Japan over the last several months.

The organizers, the Tokyo metro government and the Japanese national government are expected to explain added costs in December and detail how they will be shared.