Tokyo Olympic bid organizers urge new prime minister to attend IOC vote on 2016 host

Tokyo bid team wants Japan’s new PM at 2016 vote

TOKYO — Tokyo’s Olympic bid organizers are urging new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to join them in Copenhagen for the International Olympic Committee’s upcoming vote on which city hosts the 2016 Games.

The Tokyo team also said Thursday that 13 Japanese sporting greats, many of them former Olympic medalists, will join them for the trip to Denmark’s capital, where the vote will be held on Oct. 2.

Ichiro Kono, chair of the Tokyo bid team, said: “We have been making efforts on the assumption that Prime Minister Hatoyama will join us. We would request that he comes.”

Chicago, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid are competing against Tokyo for hosting rights.