TOKYO (AP) — Tokyo has held a groundbreaking ceremony for a $1.5 billion National Stadium to 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. 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 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. 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.
Tokyo breaks ground for the National Olympic Stadium on the site of the stadium used for the 1964 Olympic Games.