The president of cycling's international organizing body said Thursday that he was concerned over venue changes being proposed by organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
"We understand that Tokyo 2020 want to do a quite radical change of the venues. We are very much concerned about the nature of those proposed changes," UCI president Brian Cookson said at a session of the International Olympic Committee.
"We understand the needs in the (Olympic Agenda 2020) transition period to make sure the games (are as) economical and sustainable as possible. We support the Olympic Agenda 2020, of course," Cook added.
"One of the concerns we have is to secure all of the events from short distance to others in downtown Tokyo. So any proposals to move from the original concept cause these concerns."
Agenda 2020 calls on organizers to economize and make the Olympic Games more sustainable and with that in mind, one of many changes Tokyo 2020 organizers have sought to make is moving track cycling to an existing venue in Ito, Shizuoka Prefecture, rather than build a new facility in Tokyo as proposed in Tokyo's bid plan.
"We will sit down to do the detailed analysis with the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee and the IOC. We will have a committee meeting at the end of September," Cookson said. "To invite Tokyo 2020 people is sensible. We want to know more details by doing analysis before reaching the decision."