Tokyo closes books on delayed Games; $13 billion price tag
TOKYO (AP) — The final price tag for last year’s COVID-delayed Tokyo Olympics was put at $13 billion (1.4 trillion Japanese yen), the organising committee said Tuesday in its final act before it is dissolved at the end of the month.
The cost was twice what was forecast in 2013 when Tokyo was awarded the Games. However, the final price tag presented by organisers is lower than the $15.4 billion they predicted when the Olympics ended just under 11 months ago.
“We made an estimate, and the estimate has gone down lower than we expected,” Tokyo organising committee CEO Toshiro Muto said, speaking through an interpreter at a news conference. “As a total amount, whether this is huge or not — when it comes to that kind of talk it is not easy to evaluate.”
Accurately tracking Olympic costs — who pays, who benefits, and what are and are not Games’ expenses — is an ever-moving maze. The one-year delay added to the difficulty, as did recent fluctuations in the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen.
When the Olympics opened on July 23, 2021, $1 bought 110 yen. On Monday, $1 bought 135 yen, the dollar’s highest level against the yen in about 25 years. Organisers chose to use a rate of $1 to 109.89 yen to figure the dollar price, which organisers said was the average exchange rate for 2021.
A University of Oxford study in 2020 said Tokyo was the most expensive Olympics on record.
