Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike on Saturday visited a boat race course in Miyagi Prefecture, a facility emerging as an alternative venue for the rowing and canoe sprint events at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games.

"Based on this visit, I will start considering venues," Koike told reporters after inspecting facilities at the Naganuma rowing course in the city of Tome, more than 400 kilometers from Tokyo. Miyagi is one of the prefectures in northeastern Japan hit hardest by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Games organizers and the International Rowing Federation had already approved the Sea Forest Waterway venue to be constructed on Tokyo Bay, but a metropolitan government cost review panel recommended last month that plan be reconsidered.