Summary Construction will be fast tracked and the stadium will meet its March 2019 deadline.
TOKYO (AP) - A new round of bidding for construction of the main stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will delay the start of the controversial project.
Japan Sport Council official Takayuki Ito on Tuesday said some of the bids were reviewed by someone in the decision committee before all bids were in, a violation of the rules.
Another round of bidding is due to start later this month. But he said construction will be fast tracked, and the stadium will meet its March 2019 deadline.
"We need to revamp the whole system of planning for the Olympic stadium," he said, acknowledging there were too many problems.
Ito declined to say who had broken the rules, but suggested it had been an error and not a malicious act.
Plans for the stadium, designed by award-winning British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, have been plagued by problems, including complaints from some prominent architects who say the design is too big and expensive.
The 80,000-seat, futuristic design to replace Tokyo s National Stadium was initially projected to cost 130 billion yen ($1.3 billion), but the estimate quickly ballooned to more than double that. It is now expected to be scaled down.
There have been other problems in the bidding as well.
In the first round of bidding, announced in March, all the bids surpassed the estimated costs and were rejected in May. In June, it was found that some bids were lower than the level set as the standard. A month later, complaints of bid-rigging surfaced. But an internal investigation in July and August found no evidence of bid-rigging, the council said in a statement last month.
Ito denied any scandal in the lowest bid getting rejected, and said it did not meet the required standard.
Demolition of the old stadium will start in the middle of December, delayed by more than two months from the initial schedule, the council said.
The council promised to introduce electronic bids and better educate council members to avoid future problems.
The new stadium is replacing the smaller 54,000-seat main stadium, used for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
The site, in a downtown Tokyo park, is within walking distance of a landmark Shinto shrine and a famous venue designed by Kenzo Tange for the 1964 Olympics.
