Japan’s Olympics minister visits Rio de Janeiro venues

FILE: Shunichi Suzuki (Photo by Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEAIAEA Imagebank – Shunichi Suzuki & Yukiya Amano (02813506) | Flickr – Photo Sharing!, CC BY-SA 2.0)

RIO DE JANEIRO — Japan’s Olympics minister says he is visiting Rio de Janeiro to learn from the city’s experience hosting the 2016 Summer Games.

Shunichi Suzuki is on a three-day trip to Rio that began Sunday as part of preparations for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

On Monday he visited one of the Olympics venues and the anti-doping laboratory before touring the Integrated Command and Control Center where local authorities co-ordinated security during the Rio Games.

While Tokyo’s crime rate is much lower than Rio’s, Suzuki says Japanese authorities are working to prevent threats to cybersecurity as well acts of terrorism.

On Wednesday, the minister will visit the Olympic Park and meet with Brazil’s Olympics Committee.