IOC President puts focus on upcoming Games, Olympic Agenda 2020
With just over a year to go before the start of the Olympic Games Rio de Janeiro 2016, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach today said he was “very confident” that organisers would deliver great Games next summer.
Providing details of the IOC Executive Board meetings that concluded today in Kuala Lumpur, President Bach told reporters that the Rio de Janeiro Organising Committee for the Olympic Games was preparing well for the 44 test events that are taking place ahead of the Games.
“The situation with Rio de Janeiro is as always: great progress but no time to lose,” said the IOC President, who will travel to Rio de Janeiro to take part in one-year-to-go celebrations on 5 August. “Great progress has been made at the Olympic Village and sports venues. The public transportation being delivered for the Games will be ready on time and leave a great legacy for the people of Rio de Janeiro.”
President Bach said the Organising Committee has acknowledged the challenges that remain: “which is the best way to take care of them. I am very confident we will have great Games next year.”
The IOC President also praised the progress being made by organisers of the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 and Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, the latter of which he said had done an excellent job embracing the reforms of Olympic Agenda 2020, the IOC’s strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement.
“We see how they have really embraced Olympic Agenda 2020,” he said of Tokyo 2020. “Fifty per cent of the venues will now be existing venues. Venues for 26 of the sports have already been approved. They have saved USD 1.7 billion (from the revised Tokyo 2020 construction budget) and hundreds of millions more in savings are in the pipeline with the new stadium compared to the old project.”
The Japanese government recently decided not to go ahead with a design for a new national stadium due to rising construction costs, and will instead hold a tender for a less costly alternative, a decision President Bach said the IOC respects.
“We understand the fact that they have seen dramatic changes in construction costs compared to the time of bidding,” he said. “They have gone through the roof. This is beyond the control of the Organising Committee and the government. So we respect this decision and we know that they will deliver a state-of-the-art stadium for the athletes.”