Japan’s Nagoya and Aichi to bid for 2026 Asian Games

TOKYO, Japan – Japan’s Aichi prefecture and its capital city Nagoya have been approved by local officials as joint candidates to host the 2026 Asian Games.

The Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) said a dispute over costs between the two parties had been solved, paving the way for a bid, which could bring the regional Games back to Japan for the first time since the 1994 competition in Hiroshima.

Japanese officials, already under the spotlight over allegations of bribery in their successful bid for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, were left squirming once again after Nagoya’s mayor Takashi Kawamura threatened to pull the plug. 

“It’s regrettable things got confusing toward the end,” JOC secretary general Eisuke Hiraoka was quoted as saying by Kyodo news agency.

“It could become a matter of international trust. We hope they will positively proceed with the matter.”

The prefectural government of Aichi, located in central Japan, has informed Nagoya that the Games would cost some $820 million – Aichi would pay two-thirds and Nagoya the remaining third.

The bid is not expected to have any rivals when the Olympic Council of Asia meets to vote in Danang, Vietnam on September 25. 

Indonesia’s Jakarta and Palembang will host the next edition of the Asian Games, which are held every 4 years, in 2018.

“There are expectations that we would be able to lead the event to success if we jointly host it,” Aichi governor Hideaki Omura said in a statement.

Kawamura, however, insisted to local taxpayers that costs would not spiral, as they have for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The mounting cost of hosting the summer Games has forced the Japanese government to scrap the original plans for the main stadium.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tore up the blueprints for Tokyo’s new National Stadium as the price tag sky-rocketed to more than $2 billion in a major embarrassment for 2020 Olympic organizers.

In a further humiliation, the official emblem for the Games was also ditched after claims of plagiarism from a Belgian theater before Japanese Olympic officials became embroiled in a bribery scandal.

An independent panel recently found that Tokyo’s $2 million payment to a Singaporean consulting firm in connection with its bid was legitimate, although prosecutors in France are still investigating whether the money led to the disgraced former world athletics chief Lamine Diack. – Rappler.com