Hosting the most compact Games ever has been one of Tokyo’s selling points since the city won the 2020 Olympics’ hosting rights. But as the Tokyo bid has had to realise, making a geographically compact event is not always economically compact.

Book review: In his new book, economist Andrew Zimbalist analyses the benefits and risks of hosting a sports mega-event and finds that the economic risks by far exeed the benefits.

In a letter sent to the IOC president Thomas Bach, a coalition of NGOs, sports groups and trades unions recommends that the IOC includes labour and human rights standards in the 2024 Olympic Host City contract.

After more than two years of legal battle between Laura Robinson, a freelance investigative journalist, and former VANOC CEO John Furlong, a trial date has now been set for Robinson’s case against Furlong.

With the approval of the Agenda 2020 reforms, IOC President Thomas Bach cemented his own power basis. The question is if he also re-established the power of the IOC in a changing sports world. Andreas Selliaas gives a personal account from the IOC session in Monaco.

It may leave many crucial questions open. But by accepting president Thomas Bach’s Agenda 2020 reform programme unanimously, the IOC has set the yardstick that it will be measured by for many years to come.

Tokyo’s hosting of the Olympic Games in 1964 was a PR triumph, which reflected on the entire population’s self-confidence. The Japanese government and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s vision for the 2020 Games is to repeat this success, but it will be a Japan with all its strengths, weaknesses and inner conflicts that opens its doors to the world.

With the Agenda 2020, the IOC has raised high expectations about change and it would be suicidal for the Olympic movement to betray its grand promises, says Antoine Duval in this comment.