A year before the start of the Olympic games in Tokyo would like to be a sovereign host. However, the want to believe in soon it’s just the IOC. Several crises to cause the operator problems.
When in Tokyo-these days the sun shines high above the rooftops of a special pattern in the sky. The Skytree, with 634 meters the second tallest structure in the world, lights up all around in the colors of the famous five rings. The symbolism verklickert, it is also the last inhabitants of the Japanese capital: It won’t be long now until the biggest sporting event in the world in the largest metropolis. 24. July is still a year up to the summer Olympics.
On the goal there, the host pretends to be the greatest sovereignty. At the beginning of July, it was said, already, about 90 percent of the sites are completed. As a representative of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) visited in may to Tokyo, they praised once more the progress. IOC President Thomas Bach confirmed in the past year, he remember no city would ever have been better prepared. Everything is under control, it seems.
A year before the start of the two-week spectacle, it is Masa Takayas Supreme task is to maintain this image. One afternoon in early July, the spokesman of the organizing Committee stands at the window of a tall building in Tokyo’s port area and surveyed the almost completed construction sites of the Olympic district. “There should be games for everyone,” says Takaya with concentrated eyes. “All should benefit.” Only when this is achieved, one could speak of a successful Olympic Games. That sounds respectable, but also pre-punched.
Long-standing OK-boss is suspected of corruption
OK speaker Takaya: “games for all”
Takaya, a wiry Amateur triathlete, has drawn from his Job. For years, he must be just, if the press makes play awkward questions to the summer. And embarrassingly, there are in also in the case of Tokyo, in the meantime, many: So the French Prosecutor’s office for three years against Tsunekazu Takeda, the leader of the application team, and in spite of everything, until the end of June, Chairman of the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) remained. Takeda is suspected of vote-buying in the Wake of the awarding of the 2020 games. And corruption allegations are far from the only Problem for the organisers.
Add to this the excessive costs. At the beginning of the planning 6.6 billion estimated dollars, of which – so it was stressed fond of – not a Cent should go to the expense of the tax payer. Then, one of Tokyo’s mayor Yuriko Koike convened a Commission of experts came three years ago, to an estimate of up to $ 30 billion – and tax-financed public sector would be charged probably. Because Japan’s public debt is already at more than 200 percent of gross domestic product, would have to work well all the generations of the Olympic load. Can benefit from such expensive really Play any?
In the office tower on the construction sites OK-speaker Masa Takaya comes to infrastructure: “Many of the plants were used in 1964 and are now modernized. According to the former Play, you have enriched until today, half a century, the lives of the people. And we are sure that the people, old as young, now the value of the Olympic games.”
The new national stadium, where the opening ceremony of the games in 2020 will take place
But at what price? “We continue to think that for the cost of the games is no tax money is used,” said Takaya. “Which are financed by sponsors.” How is this going to go? “For the renovations of the stadiums, although it needed tax money. But such Work, we see not as a cost but as an investment, of which Tokyo will feed off that.” The current construction boom sports boom will follow, believes Takaya.
Working without a contract, low wages
The construction of the Olympic facilities, a shadow is. In may, the trade Union world Federation of building and wood workers (BWI) published a frightening report. After that, workers must take up to 28 days without a free day, half of them are working without a written contract. Safety clothing would have to pay some of the workers themselves, is it. To be two death cases, it has already come.
Tokyo, the beginning of July, a evening, a whole industry disappointed. In the West of the city, a hand meets full of construction workers in the rooms of the building, construction, “Zenkensoren”, about the everyday life on the Olympic construction sites to exchange. Most of them are over 60 years old. You are not yet working because their pension alone is not enough.
Construction site of the Olympic gymnastics center
A 62-Year-old with a grey Beard, in the building of the Olympic village, crossed his arms: “five years Ago, when Work began, they have promised us that there will be a Boom. But the wages are still as low as before.” Because everything had to go faster than other construction projects, you are constantly in a hurry. “We are working on a conveyor belt. We are able to become every evening to go home first, when everything is ready. Even if it’s raining, should we apply a cement, although, you should not do that actually.”
Another worker who is already over 70, reported how once on the site for the sailing rig a rod broke: “If I something like that the supervisor reports, it just says that I should continue to work.” When the games began, he says, he will not watch: “I was proud of the fact that I have been collaborating for the Olympics. But now I’m just mad.”
Scientists: citizens have to pay for it
Shinichi Ueyama Professor of public administration at the prestigious Keiko University, and the experts sat on the Commission that established the horrendous cost estimate. Reasonably satisfied Ueyama reported: “With our recommendations, we were able to reduce the expected Budget of 20 billion US dollars. Most of the savings were achieved due to the reduced capacity of the swimming pool and on the construction sites.”
The taxpayer is therefore, to some extent spared? Ueyama laughs: “no one believes. The entire responsibility for the financing, but the Tokyo Metropolitan government.” It is, therefore, not only the cost of the stadium will be built on the citizens of Tokyo to remain hanging, but also further expenses such as for Shuttle buses, the power supply or the clothing for the Olympic volunteers.
Whether Shinichi Ueyama is happy in spite of everything, on the Olympic games? The scientist was silent for a Moment. “I look like a Sport,” says Ueyama. But whether such a well-equipped cosmopolitan city like Tokyo really, really need these new, expensive equipment, because he was not so sure.