No.82 The course for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Cycling Road Race has been announced!

Tokyo was chosen as the venue for the 2020 Summer Olympics at the IOC general meeting in September 2013, and since the Tokyo Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games was established in January 2014, preparations have begun in earnest. Ta.
The concept for this year's Olympics was to be a ``compact Games,'' and the plan was to centralize the competition venues in the city center. For this reason, there are only a few competitions held in the Tama area, and I thought it would be difficult for Inagi City to be the venue, but I had high hopes when I learned that it was a bicycle road race course in the candidacy file. Ta.
By the way, various problems arose in the early stages of preparation for this tournament. The construction plan for the new National Stadium, which had been decided in 2012 to be rebuilt with a design by Zaha Hadid, was scrapped in July 2015, and the public bidding process was restarted. Additionally, because the tournament emblem designed by Kenjiro Sano closely resembles the logo of Belgium's Liège Theater, a lawsuit was filed to stop its use, and its use was discontinued.
At the same time as these problems were resolved, there was also a movement to reconsider each competition venue for reasons such as reducing construction costs, and there was a time when I felt uneasy. The bicycle road race was set to run through Inagi City when the 2013 candidacy file was submitted, and at the IOC Executive Board meeting in December 2015, it was decided that the course would start and end at the Imperial Palace Gardens and circle around Inagi City and Tama City. was approved, and it was time to move on to choosing a specific course, but just as we were about to do so, we received information that the goal point would be changed to Musashino Forest. I would be in trouble if there were any major changes in the future, so in May 2016 I submitted a request to Tokyo Governor Yoichi Masuzoe and Organizing Committee Chairman Yoshiro Mori to invite the course to Inagi City. The Inagi City Council also submitted a written opinion to the Tokyo Governor and the Chairman of the Organizing Committee.
However, after that, there was no progress in setting the course, and I was very surprised when a newspaper report suddenly appeared in May of last year that the most likely plan was to start at Musashino Forest and finish at Fuji Speedway.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) requested the organizing committee to change the course to a course with Mt. Fuji in the background that conveys the charm of Japan, and with many ups and downs that would allow for the differences in the abilities of the athletes to be seen. There was a sense of danger that Inagi City would be left out if we continued to stand idly by, so from this point on we decided to work together with Tama City to attract and request the event.
In June 2017, the Inagi City Council and the Tama City Council each approved written opinions and requests regarding the bid, and the Mayor of Tama also submitted a written request.
Furthermore, in October 2017, the Mayor of Tama and I jointly submitted a proposal to Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike to highlight the suitability of both cities for bicycle road racing.
After that, speculative articles regarding course changes were published in multiple newspapers, but since we, the local government, do not have the authority to make decisions, we were just waiting for the results of the requests we had made so far. Finally, on August 9, 2018, the organizing committee made an official decision and announced that Inagi City would be the course.
We would like to once again express our gratitude to everyone who has cooperated with the bid thus far. Let's work together to prepare for the day of the tournament.