TOKYO: The final price tag for last year’s Tokyo Olympics was more than double the city’s original 2013 estimate after a one-year Covid-19 postponement added to the already hefty bill.
The organising committee said Tuesday the Games had cost ¥1.42 trillion, the equivalent of US$13 billion at the time. At today’s rates, with the yen at a 24-year low against the dollar, the figure would be $10.4 billion.
Tokyo 2020 was held a year later than planned because of the pandemic — the first Olympics postponed in peacetime — and spectators were banned from nearly all events, which were held under strict Covid-19 countermeasures.
The Games…