Sapporo тАУ The northern Japanese city of Sapporo announced Monday a significant cut to its projected hosting costs for the 2030 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, slashing the budget by ┬е90 billion ($790 million) or 20% of its initial estimate.
Sapporo, which hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics, is considered a leading candidate to win the right to host the events, but local residents have expressed concern about a repeat of this yearтАЩs Tokyo Games budget blowout.
In its initial budget in 2019, the city expected costs to total between ┬е310 billion and ┬е370 billion. On Monday, Sapporo revised that downward to a range of ┬е280 billion to ┬е300 billion.
Tokyo spent ┬е1.64 trillion to stage the 2020 Summer Games that were postponed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic and related issues.
According to the revised proposal, operational costs will be reduced by ┬е10 billion to ┬е30 billion from the ┬е230 billion initially budgeted, while infrastructure development costs will come in at the lower end of the previously outlined ┬е80 billion to ┬е140 billion range.
Sapporo said it plans to cover all operational costs through sponsorship and ticket revenue. The city will, however, shoulder the ┬е45 billion cost of upgrading infrastructure and venues, within the earlier estimate of ┬е40 billion to ┬е60 billion.
Apart from Sapporo Dome, which will be used for the opening and closing ceremonies, the number of competition venues that will be used for the games was reduced from 15 to 13. No new venues will need to be constructed to host the 2030 Games, Sapporo said.
Some of the events will be held in Obihiro, east of Sapporo, Niseko, southwest of Sapporo, and Nagano, the host city for the 1998 Winter Olympics, located on JapanтАЩs main island, some 170 kilometers northwest of Tokyo.
Sapporo announced plans to host the 2026 Winter Olympics in 2014. In November 2016, it said that the cost of hosting would be about ┬е453.7 billion.
But after a deadly earthquake rocked Hokkaido in 2018, Sapporo pushed back its hosting aspirations by four years and instead focused on 2030.
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