Tokyo will repay the world the debt they owe them for their help after the devastating tsunami in 2011 when the city hosts the 2020 Olympic Games Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.
The 58-year-old was speaking after the Japanese capital secured their second Olympic Games — having previously had them in 1964 — by beating Istanbul by 60 votes to 36 at a meeting of International Olympic Committee (IOC) members in Buenos Aires yesterday.
Abe, whose final presentation allayed members’ fears over contaminated water leaking from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, said Japan would repay its debt to the world in full.
He added that he had seen how sport could change lives in the immediate aftermath of the quake and giant waves that struck northeast Japan in March 2011, leaving over 18,000 people dead and badly damaging the nuclear plant.
“Sport can mobilise people. That is the power shown exactly after the tsunami,” he said.
“The situation was very tough but lots of athletes (including US sprint legend Carl Lewis) came to Japan and played with the kids and everybody had hope and courage.
“During the presentation I said about the boy I saw with a football given to him by one of these athletes. That football is not a gift. It is for the future. That is the power of sports.
“Japan needs hope and dreams and we are now looking forward to dreams and hopes. We will pay the debt of support we owe the world from the time of the tsunami.”
Abe, who flew to South America from the G20 summit in St Petersburg, Russia, said the Olympics had given him such dreams when he was a boy in 1964 and was overwhelmed when he heard Tokyo announced as winners.