The city that knocked Chicago out of the first round of voting for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games claims it has overwhelming public support for its own renewed bid for the 2020 Games.
A survey, conducted for the Tokyo city government, suggests over 65 percent of the public backs a bid for the 2020 Games. Tokyo was considered a long shot candidate for 2016, a contest that many believed would come down to a face-off between Chicago and Rio de Janeiro. But Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting in Copenhagen in the fall of 2009.
Tokyo was defeated in the following round, and Rio eventually bested Madrid in the final vote to win the 2016 prize.
"These results indicate that some 80 million people across the whole of Japan are behind our bid,” Tokyo 2020 President and Japanese Olympic Committee President Tsunekazu Takeda said. “This is wonderful news for Tokyo 2020, and will serve as a further motivation for us to bring the Games to Tokyo.”
Tokyo last hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1964. Japan has hosted two Winter Olympics, in Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998.
"Our bid for the 2020 Games has only been underway for a few short months, and we have not yet made public the details of our plans, Takeda said. "Despite this, however, we have still managed to garner a 65.7 percent support rate for the bid.”
