Tokyo 2020 cost overrun has exceeded 200%: Report

Still 318 days to go, the Tokyo 2020 bill has already exceeded the cost of any other Olympics in the history of the Modern Games. The budget to host the Games was estimated at $ 7.3billion in 2013. It has since been raised to $12.6 billion.

A report from the University of Oxford has revealed the costs to host the Games has already reached $ 15.84 billion. The expensed will further shoot till the completion of the Games, rescheduled from July 23 to August 8 next year.

The Games, which were to take place during July-August this year, in March this year were postponed by one year due to the threat posed by the burst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had taken around 200 countries worldwide under its grip.

According to the Associated Press, lead author of the University of Oxford study, Regression to the Tail: Why the Olympics Blow Up, Bent Flyvbjerg has said the costs of the Tokyo 2020 Games are already up by more than 200%.

If there was no additional burden of deferring the Games due to the pandemic, the volume of the hike won’t have been unprecedented. Every Olympics since 1960 has exceeded its budget at an average of 172%.

“The Olympics offer the highest level of risk a city can take on,” Flyvbjerg is reported as saying. “The trend cannot continue. No city will want to do this because it’s just too expensive, putting themselves into a debt that most cities cannot afford.”

According to International Cricket Council president Thomas Bach, it would have been easy to cancel the Games than hosting the edition a year later.

The IOC has reportedly declined to comment on the University of Oxford study, claiming it has not seen the report.

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