Tokyo to stage IOC's 2020 vision

 

	First	Run-off	Final
Tokyo (JPN)	42	-	60
Istanbul (TUR)	26	49	36
Madrid (ESP)	26	45	-

TOKYO will stage the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020 after beating Istanbul and Madrid in a vote at the 125th IOC session in Buenos Aires last night.

The Japanese capital, which has hosted the Summer Olympics previously in 1964, was seen as the favourite before the ballot, having successfully allayed concerns about the nuclear fallout from Fukushima.

Japan was a safe choice for the IOC, after the still potentially risky decisions in favour of Sochi and Rio de Janeiro.

The Asian powerhouse has the world's third-largest economy by GDP and has hosted big sporting events in the past, including the football World Cup in 2002, and two Winter Olympics in 1972 and 1998. Just a year before the Olympics arrive back in Japan, it will also host its first Rugby World Cup.

As a city, Tokyo will not have too much to do to be ready for 2020. Except for the planned renovation of the National Olympic Stadium, this should be a relatively stress-free seven-year build-up - and this was ultimately the decisive factor in the IOC vote.

Pity poor Madrid - defeated now in three successive bids to bring the Games to the Spanish capital, a desire so desperately borne out of Barcelona being such successful hosts in 1992.

Since then, though, the Spanish economy has boomed and busted - worse than many in Europe with as much as a quarter of the population unemployed. Youth unemployment has been particularly bad.

The Madrid bid tried to counteract that by promising a budget Games with over 80% of its planned venues having already been built. But, one of its slogans - "a realistic bid for realistic times" was not exactly awe-inspiring.

Indeed, according to Olympic historian Robert Livingstone, the no-frills approach would not exactly have been music to the committee's ears. "The IOC doesn't like cheap. It likes monuments to the Olympic movement," he said. 

Nevertheless, it was still a surprise to see the Spaniards ousted in a run-off vote following a dramatic first round tie with Istanbul.

Even the presence of a Crown Prince Felipe, a former Olympic sailor, could not swing the vote, though - with the need for a first round run-off, Istanbul must have known it was up against it.

After all, the Turkish capital had endured a difficult run-up to yesterday's vote. Political unrest this summer had put the government in a poor light following the deaths of eight people and over 8,000 injuries amid accusations of police brutality.

Some of the protests were at proposed Olympic sites, with economic concerns again among the demonstrators' grievances.

Moreover, a series of doping scandals involving Turkish athletes came at the worst possible time (though doping was an issue which also hampered the Madrid bid). 

Ultimately, then, for a fifth time, the outstanding attraction of hosting the Olympics on two separate continents at the same time had been outweighed by far more pragmatic concerns.

Not that the Tokyo bid had been entirely worry-free, of course, despite the weakest field of candidates for over 30 years.

In fact, with only three finalists, this was the fewest number of candidate cities for a Summer Olympics since Seoul beat Nagoya in 1981.

The Japanese may have lost back then but they succeeded this time after tackling their main issue - Fukushima - head on.

Bid leader Tsunekazu Takeda was at pains to stress that the high-profile nuclear leak is under control.

"The radiation level is absolutely safe. The 35 million people in Tokyo are living in normal conditions. There is no problem. Not one person in Tokyo has been affected. Tokyo and Fukushima are almost 250km apart," he said in Buenos Aires.

Takeda's comments were echoed by Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who said: "Let me assure you the situation is under control. It has never done and will never do any damage to Tokyo."

Next, the IOC session will move onto two other big selections. Today, three sports - baseball, squash and wrestling - compete for a place at the 2020 Games.

With Japan's victory in the bidding process and an Olympic history which goes back to ancient times, wrestling is the strong favourite. An announcement will be made at 5pm BST.

Finally, on Tuesday, the IOC will elect a new president to replace the outgoing Jacques Rogge.

For this, there are six men, and no women, standing. They are: Thomas Bach of Germany, Ng Ser Miang of Singapore, Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico, Wu Ching-kuo of Chinese Taipei, Denis Oswald of Switzerland, and Sergey Bubka of Ukraine.

Bubka is easily the most famous name on the list, having won the pole vault in Seoul with an Olympic record, but Bach - who also won gold as a fencer in Montreal 1972 - is favourite for the role.

Bach would largely be seen as an extension of Rogge, the quiet 71-year-old Belgian surgeon. Asked to reflect on his time at the top, Rogge was characteristically modest.

"I did my duty," he said. "I did what I had to do. If it has benefited the IOC, I'm happy." Almost as happy as the Japanese today, perhaps.


SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES HOSTS
†= Cancelled due to WW1 or WW2

1896	I	Athens, Greece			1960	XVII	Rome, Italy
1900	II	Paris, France			1964	XVIII	Tokyo, Japan
1904	III	St Louis, USA			1968	XIX	Mexico City, Mexico
1908	IV	London, UK			1972	XX	Munich, West Germany
1912	V	Stockholm, Sweden			1976	XXI	Montreal, Canada
†1916	VI	Berlin, Germany			1980	XXII	Moscow, Soviet Union
1920	VII	Antwerp, Belgium			1984	XXIII	Los Angeles, USA
1924	VIII	Paris, France			1988	XXIV	Seoul, South Korea
1928	IX	Amsterdam, Netherlands			1992	XXV	Barcelona, Spain
1932	X	Los Angeles, USA			1996	XXVI	Atlanta, USA
1936	XI	Berlin, Germany			2000	XXVII	Sydney, Australia
†1940	XII	Tokyo, Japan then Helsinki, Finland			2004	XXVIII	Athens, Greece
†1944	XIII	London, UK			2008	XXIX	Beijing, China
1948	XIV	London, UK			2012	XXX	London, UK
1952	XV	Helsinki, Finland			2016	XXXI	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1956	XVI	Melbourne, Australia			2020	XXXII	Tokyo, Japan

25 years on, Chernobyl continues to cast its shadow

UKRAINE President Viktor Yanukovych yesterday commemorated the 25th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident alongside his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev.

The Chernobyl disaster occurred when an explosion and a fire at one of the plant's reactors sent a plume of radiation across Europe, potentially causing the deaths of thousands of people.

Of course, the anniversary is all the more poignant after last month's earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima plant in Japan became only the second level seven event on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

Chernobyl was the first and, even now, its effect still lingers in social attitudes towards nuclear power.

'Nuclear' is perhaps the dirtiest word in science. The first widespread use of the word referred to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the subsequent arms race in the Cold War between the USA and USSR.

Even when scientists attempted to use nuclear fission for peaceful means, as an alternative to fossil fuels to create power, a series of accidents meant it could not shrug off its poor reputation.

It is no coincidence that the creators of The Simpsons decided to employ their bumbling protagonist Homer as an operator at the local plant. No one demonstrates the risk of leaving nuclear power in human hands better than him.

Now, the stricken Fukushima plant has brought the debate over nuclear power back to the forefront.

In France, which is hugely reliant on nuclear power for its electricity production, a poll after the Fukushima accident found that 57% of the respondents were opposed to its use.

And, in Germany, public opinion was even more strongly against and a reported quarter of a million marched under the slogan "Heed Fukushima - shut off all nuclear plants".

Surprisingly, the German government under Chancellor Angela Merkel partly heeded the call of the protesters by shutting down all seven of the reactors opened before 1981, leaving just 10 open.

But many scientists fear that the incident at the Fukushima plant was badly reported and that news organisations acted as scaremongers by preying on the reputation of nuclear power.

Certainly, here in the UK, it was noticeable how quickly the story moved away from the devastating earthquake and tsunami, and towards the seemingly impending atomic doom.

Indeed, at times, it seemed as if the BBC and Sky had completely forgotten that it was the magnitude-9.0 quake and tsunami which has killed more than 10,000 people - and not radiation from the nuclear power plant which has so far killed no one.

Thankfully, retrospective views have been less reactionary and this BBC website page suggests that, though Chernobyl and Fukushima were both rated as level seven accidents, the leak in 1986 was much worse.

The truth is that if the UK is going to reduce its carbon footprint in line with international targets, then a greater use of nuclear power must be part of the solution in the medium-term at least.

It is an uncomfortable truth for some, and other people or groups who are more stridently opposed will undoubtedly continue to bury their heads in the sand and not accept it.

But, as the Independent newspaper reported in 2009, even some leading environmental figures have performed U-turns by recognising nuclear power as the way to reduce carbon emissions.

That was pre-Fukushima, of course - but it is difficult to see how the events in Japan have made the argument in favour of nuclear power weaker.

The fact is that, despite one of the strongest earthquakes ever and an tsunami which breached the 18ft concrete wall defences, the amounts of radioactive materials released from the site are unlikely to cause any detectable long-term health problems.

Thankfully, the UK is not on a major fault line caused by the shifting tectonic plates and new technology actually means that reactors can shutdown and cool themselves without power or human intervention.

Dealing with nuclear waste is, admittedly, a contentious issue as it is normally buried deep underground and can remain dangerous for millions of years.

However, scientists are constantly looking at ways of avoiding this and it is now accepted that far more used nuclear fuel should be reprocessed to be re-used.

It seems to me that a greater number of nuclear plants would go a long way to easing Britain's energy concerns and carbon footprint.

And so it is unfortunate and actually unhelpful that the bad reputation of nuclear power precedes it and the Chernobyl scars still run so deep.