Commentary & Opinion 3:52 pm Wed September 11, 2013  Keith
Studler: Tokyo's Olympic Selection  Everything is relative, I
suppose. So if a city has suffered five recessions in the past
15 years, a devastating earthquake and a nuclear emergency, it
can still somehow be considered the safe choice. That’s Tokyo,
and it was oddly the benign selection to host the 2020 Summer
Olympic Games, chosen over the comparatively risky Madrid and
Istanbul, or Constantinople, for all you They Might Be Giants
Fans. Madrid has an unemployment rate approaching 25% and a long
legacy of doping by top athletes. And Istanbul offers civil
unrest and an unfortunate neighbor in Syria. So for that, Tokyo
becomes the unquestionable safe and really only choice for the
2020 Games, even if it lacks the sex appeal, literally and
figuratively, of the upcoming 2016 summer festival in Rio.
Tokyo promised the IOC more than simply literal security, which
Turkey simply can’t. It, at least on paper, suggested fiscal
assurance, its bid coming in at