TOKYO: After a one-year postponement due to the coronavirus, the ultimate cost of the Tokyo Olympics in 2016 was more than double the city’s initial 2013 estimate.
The planning committee announced on Tuesday that the cost of the Games was 1.42 trillion yen or $13 billion at the time. The amount would be $10.4 billion at the current exchange rate, with the yen at a 24-year low against the dollar.
The first Olympics to be postponed in peacetime, Tokyo 2020 took place a year later than expected because of the epidemic, and spectators were prohibited from practically all events, which were held under tight Covid-19 precautions.
The cost of the Games was less than the final pre-Games budget revealed in December 2020, but it was double the 734 billion yen estimate made by the Tokyo Games organizers in their application to the International Olympic Committee in 2013.
