No.82 Announcement of the Course for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Road Cycling Race!

The host city for the summer Olympics in 2020 was decided to be Tokyo at the IOC General Assembly in September 2013, and since the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games was established in January 2014, preparations have been in full swing.
In this Olympic Games, the concept of a "compact event" was presented during the bid, with plans to concentrate the competition venues in the city center. Therefore, I thought it would be difficult for Inagi City to host any events, as there were only a few competitions held in the Tama area. However, I was greatly looking forward to it upon learning that the cycling road race course was included in the bid file.
By the way, various issues arose in the early stages of preparation for this tournament. The construction plan for the new National Stadium, which was decided to be rebuilt based on a design by Zaha Hadid in 2012, was completely retracted in July 2015, and the public recruitment was restarted. Additionally, the tournament emblem designed by Kenjiro Sano was subject to a lawsuit for being strikingly similar to the logo of the Liège Theatre in Belgium, leading to its discontinuation.
Alongside resolving such troubles, there have also been movements to reconsider each competition venue for reasons such as reducing construction costs, which caused some anxiety. The cycling road race had a course set through Inagi City at the time of the submission of the candidacy file in 2013, and in December 2015, the IOC board approved a course starting and finishing at the Imperial Palace East Garden, circling Inagi City and Tama City, marking the stage for specific course selection. However, just then, information came in about changing the finish point to Musashino no Mori. It would be problematic if there were significant changes from here on, so in May 2016, I submitted a request for the course to be brought to Inagi City to Governor Yoichi Masuzoe and Chairperson Yoshiro Mori of the organizing committee, and in June of the same year, an Opinion Statement was also submitted from the Inagi City Council to the Governor and the Chairperson of the organizing committee.
However, after that, there was no progress on the course setting, and suddenly in May of last year, there were newspaper reports that a plan starting from Musashino no Mori and finishing at Fuji Speedway was being considered, which was very surprising.

With Mount Fuji in the background, it has been requested by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to change the course to one that better conveys the charm of Japan and highlights the differences in athletes' abilities due to its undulating terrain. There is a sense of crisis that Inagi City may be excluded if we continue to stand by, so from this point on, we have decided to collaborate with Tama City to engage in solicitation and request activities.
In June 2017, the Inagi City Council and the Tama City Council each passed an Opinion Statement and request regarding the invitation, and a request was also submitted by the Mayor of Tama City.
Furthermore, in October 2017, the mayor of Tama City and I jointly submitted a proposal to Governor Yuriko Koike to promote the points at which both cities are suitable for bicycle road racing.
Since then, several newspapers have published speculative articles regarding the course change, but we, as a local government, have no decision-making authority, so we could only wait for the results of the requests made so far. Finally, on August 9, 2018, the organizing committee made an official decision and announcement, and it has been confirmed that Inagi City will be part of the course.
We would like to express our gratitude to all the stakeholders who have cooperated in the invitation so far. Let's work together to prepare for the day of the event.