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Olympics chief says Japan safe to host sport

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge (left) appears at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo on July 14. Rogge said it was safe to stage sporting events in Japan, despite the ongoing emergency at a disaster-hit nuclear power plant

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said Thursday it is safe to stage sporting events in Japan, despite the ongoing emergency at a disaster-hit nuclear power plant. Rogge, visiting the nation to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Japanese Olympic Committee, also welcomed another "strong bid" from Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics after it lost out to Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 edition. Tokyo's governor Shintaro Ishihara is expected to formally announce the city's bid at the weekend while Rogge is in town. "We feel absolutely safe (in Japan)," Rogge told reporters when asked if Tokyo, some 220 kilometres (140 miles) from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, is ready to host sporting events. Rogge, a Belgian Orthopedic surgeon, said specialists' reports on the radioactive pollution from Fukushima, which has left a 20-kilometre no-go zone around the plant, convinced him Japan will have "no problem" hosting events. "We are totally assured that international competitions can take place in Japan," he said. The world figure skating championships scheduled for late March in Tokyo were moved to Moscow after the quake and tsunami that month sparked the atomic crisis at the plant. But the International Gymnastics Federation has decided to hold its world championships in Tokyo in October as planned. Rome and Madrid, which also failed to win the 2016 Games, have announced their candidacies for the 2020 edition while Istanbul and Doha are also reportedly considering bids. Candidates must submit their bids by September 1 and the winner will be chosen in Buenos Aires in September 2013. Rogge reiterated his view that last week's selection of South Korea's Pyeongchang as host of the 2018 Winter Olympics will not hamper the bid of an Asian city for the Summer Games two years later. "There is a perception that there is an automatic rotation of continents. This is not the case," Rogge said. "We go for quality. We don't go for continents," Rogge said.