Tokyo held a groundbreaking ceremony on Sunday for a $1.5 billion National Stadium to host the 2020 Olympic Games.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike and other dignitaries launched the construction at the site of the demolished National Stadium, which was used during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, by putting their hands on a glass sphere that rotated through pastels of the colors of the Olympic logo.

The ceremony ended with a video replete with computer graphics showing how the stadium is expected to look and function once completed by November 2019.

Work on the stadium in the center of the city fell behind schedule because the government abandoned the original design amid spiraling costs and complaints over its scale and appearance.

Koike, Tokyo's first female governor, took office in July pledging to use her platform to host a cost-efficient and environmentally friendly 2020 Olympics. She has lambasted organizers of the 2020 games for failing to keep costs under control.

An expert panel she appointed put the price tag of the 2020 Games at over $30 billion, barring drastic cost-cutting measures, a more than a four-fold increase from the initial estimate when the city was awarded the games in 2013.

Fans of the old stadium, built in the late 1950s, had lobbied to keep and renovate it. But in the end the government opted to replace it with a more modern facility.

Kengo Kuma, the architect of the new, open-air stadium, chose a wooden lattice design that echoes traditional styles seen in Japanese shrines and pagodas. It is intended to blend in with surrounding parkland and will be structured to minimize costs for heating and cooling.

The structure will use Japanese-grown larch in its wood and steel composite roof and prefabricated panels to help speed the work along and contain costs.</s>TOKYO (AP) — Tokyo has held a groundbreaking ceremony for a $1.5 billion National Stadium to host the 2020 Olympic Games.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Koike and other dignitaries attended the event Sunday at the site of the demolished National Stadium that was used during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. They launched the construction of the stadium by putting their hands on a glass sphere that rotated through pastels of the colors of the Olympic logo.

The ceremony ended with a video replete with computer graphics showing how the stadium is expected to look and function once completed by November 2019.

Work on the stadium in the center of the city fell behind schedule because the government abandoned the original design amid spiraling costs and complaints.</s>Tokyo has held a groundbreaking ceremony for a $1.5bn (£1.2bn) national stadium that will host the 2020 Olympic Games.

The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, Tokyo’s governor, Yuriko Koike, and other dignitaries attended the event on Sunday at the site of the demolished national stadium that was used during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. They launched the construction of the stadium by putting their hands on a glass sphere that rotated through pastels of the colours of the Olympic logo.

The ceremony ended with a video showing how the stadium is expected to look and function once completed by November 2019.

Work on the stadium in the centre of the city fell behind schedule because the government scrapped controversial plans for a dramatic Zaha Hadid-designed $2bn stadium envisioned as the focal point of the 2020 Games amid concerns about rising costs and a growing public backlash.

Koike took office in July pledging to use her platform to host a cost-efficient and environmentally friendly Olympics. She has lambasted organisers of the 2020 Games for failing to keep costs under control.



An expert panel she appointed put the price tag of the 2020 Games at more than $30bn , barring drastic cost-cutting measures, more than a four-fold increase from the initial estimate when the city was awarded the Games in 2013.



Fans of the old stadium, built in the late 1950s, lobbied to keep and renovate it, but the government opted to replace it with a more modern facility.

Kengo Kuma, the architect of the new stadium, chose a wooden lattice design that echoes traditional styles seen in Japanese shrines and pagodas. It is intended to blend in with surrounding parkland and will be structured to minimise costs for heating and cooling.

The structure will use Japanese-grown larch in its wood and steel composite roof and prefabricated panels to help speed the work along and contain costs.</s>Team GB’s Tokyo 2020 hopefuls may have to win their places in the team in a televised, multi-sport trials event a month before the start of the Games.

The GB Olympic trials concept, first floated this year, is now the subject of advanced talks involving the British Olympic Association (BOA), the government funding-agency UK Sport and several leading national governing bodies.

The BOA has even started preliminary negotiations with the USA Olympic committee about introducing a trans-Atlantic, Ryder Cup-style element to the competition.

The BOA’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, said: “There are a number of good conversations going on at the moment and the idea is that it will take place in June 2020. It’s an idea backed by UK Sport and we’ve seen it work very successfully in the US. It would be a slightly different model [to the USOC trials] – it wouldn’t be as brutal with their first-past-the-line idea, which might be because they’ve got more athletes to choose from.”

The US Olympic trials are notoriously difficult, with competition for places in some athletics and swimming events almost as fierce as the Olympics themselves. This leads to good broadcast ratings – essential in a media landscape that largely ignores Olympic sport outside the Games – but also several selection controversies. It has also been suggested that it causes some athletes to peak too early.

This is why the BOA’s plan has met with resistance in the past, particularly from sports such as boxing and cycling, which like to leave selection up to the discretion of their coaches, but Sweeney has been working hard to persuade a “critical mass” of governing bodies that the GB Olympic trials could still provide drama while retaining some “subjectivity” for the selectors.

Sweeney knows only too well how an overly competitive trials process can backfire because he worked for Reebok when the then world decathlon champion Dan O’Brien failed to register a pole vault score and missed out on the 1992 Games. The sportswear firm had based its Olympic advertising campaign around O’Brien’s rivalry with a US compatriot, Dave Johnson.

The BOA cheif executive pointed to British Swimming’s Olympic trials in Glasgow as an example of an event that already uses, to a degree, the US model, and said gymnastics, rowing, taekwondo and triathlon were “very keen” on the new, larger event, and several broadcasters were interested, too.

Sweeney also said that the USOC was very keen on a UK v USA trials and it could be done if “five or six sports on both sides of the Atlantic” could get their “calendars to work out”.

He said: “It would be good for us to get close to the current number ones [in Olympic sport] and I’m sure it would be relatively easy in terms of commercial partners and broadcasters.”</s>Karate and sport climbing are the other two.

The IOC periodically adds new sports. The organization said it is also trying to attract more interest from youth and sees breakdancing as a perfect vehicle, "a unique sport that embodies music and expression through movement to music."

This is how it will work: Twelve male and 12 female dancers, ages 16-18, will compete over two days. Competition will be broken down into three events -- men's, women's and mixed-team -- with dancers facing off in a battle format that will be judged and scored.

Chaz Bonnar, a videographer and dancer from Scotland, tweeted: "Big uproar at the moment about having #Breaking as part of the Youth Olympic Games! #hiphop #olympics #dance" Big uproar at the moment about having #Breaking as part of the Youth Olympic Games! #hiphop #olympics #dance — Chaz Bonnar (@ChazB) December 9, 2016 The IOC's decision is a clear sign that breakdancing -- and hip-hop culture at large -- continues to go global. Breakdancing originated in the 1970s among Latino and African-American inner-city youth in New York City. It grew as rap and hip-hop music became more popular. In fact, breakdancing is considered one of the four pillars of hip-hop culture, along with rap, DJing and graffiti. Breakdancing has since spread around the world and is now now a famous pastime in the UK, Middle East, Korea, South Africa and beyond. Karate and sport climbing were added to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games program at the IOC meeting four months ago in Rio de Janeiro, Team USA reported . Breakdancing is new to Olympic competition. Gender equality is a key feature of the additions. "Dance sport will be competed as men's, women's and mixed team breakdancing in a battle format," Team USA said. "Kumite, a combat form of karate, will feature three events per gender, while the three climbing disciplines -- lead, bouldering and speed -- will be staged in a combined event for both men and women." Look for all this to happen October 1-18 at the Youth Olympic Games.</s>When Adrian Heath was hired as Minnesota United’s head coach in November, he was “blown away” by the club’s plans for its new soccer stadium in St. Paul.

Those updated plans became public Monday during a ceremonial groundbreaking at the stadium’s construction site next to Interstate 94 and Snelling Avenue in the Midway neighborhood.

The privately financed, $150 million stadium will seat 19,916, with future capacity able to increase to 24,474. The enclosed stadium will have four clubs and 25 suites, with the closest seats 15 feet from the pitch and the farthest at 145 feet.

Although there have been hang-ups with construction, club owner Bill McGuire said “we’re confident we can get it done” in time for a grand-opening game during the 2018 season.

In the meantime, United will make its debut in Major League Soccer next March at TCF Bank Stadium. The club and the University of Minnesota have a two-year agreement to play at the on-campus football stadium.

Before coming to Minnesota, Heath was on the ground level with MLS expansion franchise Orlando City before that club made its debut in 2015. He assisted with plans for Orlando’s partially enclosed stadium set to open in 2017. He said Minnesota’s stadium will be a notch above.

“We are going to benefit from the fact that we are the next one along,” Heath said in a phone interview with the Pioneer Press. “I know Bill is really looking carefully at all the stuff inside the stadium and the amenities for the players and the supporters.

“It will look as good as anything that has been built certainly in America because the one thing the owners have really, really impressed on everybody is there is going to be no expense spared to make it the best stadium in the country.”

MLS Commissioner Don Garber attended Monday’s groundbreaking and said the design of the stadium is its greatest attribute. The stadium’s stands will be remain enclosed, but new renderings show a new material that’s less transparent than seen in previous drawings.

“I think it has a very modern feel to it and having stadiums that have iconic architecture to them really add to sort of the book of what we are trying to create,” Garber said.

The new rendering also shows the north side that is no longer covered.

“That is exposed a little bit more, but we also have a roof deck up there,” McGuire told the Pioneer Press. “That is where the scoreboard will be, and that will be a place where people can go up and stand.”

The elevated hangout will have a manual clock and scoreboard that’s an ode to setup at United’s former stadium at the National Sports Center in Blaine. The new space will harken to the Budweiser Roof Deck down the left-field line at the Twins’ Target Field.

United Sporting Director Manny Lagos said the grass field will be higher than the first row of seats, “so the fans can feel like they (the players) are on a platform.”

United believes the stadium overall will be on a pedestal all its own.
Tokyo breaks ground for the National Olympic Stadium on the site of the stadium used for the 1964 Olympic Games.