Japan leader announces redo for costly Tokyo Olympic stadium

TOKYO – In a major reversal, Japan’s leader announced Friday that the plans for the main stadium for the 2020 Olympics will be redone because of spiraling costs.

As a result, the stadium won’t be completed in time for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, as planned, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

“We have decided to go back to the start on the Tokyo Olympics-Paralympics stadium plan, and start over from zero,” Abe told reporters after a meeting at his office with Yoshiro Mori, chairman of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee.

The government has come under growing criticism as the estimated cost for the new National Stadium rose to 252 billion yen ($2 billion), nearly twice as much as the initial plan of 130 billion.

The controversy was an additional headache for Abe, whose support rating has fallen over unpopular defense legislation that he is pushing to expand the role of Japan’s military overseas.