A peek inside the site for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic stadium

TOKYO — As the clock ticks toward the 2020 Olympics, a wide-open, water-logged expanse in central Tokyo is still awaiting the start of construction on a new stadium.

Journalists in hard hats tromped into the site yesterday for a brief look at the site, where work was to have begun this fall on a mammoth stadium for the Summer Games. The old National Stadium that hosted the previous Tokyo Olympics in 1964 has already been torn down to clear the way.

But the Japanese government pulled the plug on the design by renowned architect Zaha Hadid because of spiraling costs, sending organizers back to the drawing board.

For now the site sits vacant, the skyscrapers of Tokyo's Shinjuku district rising in the distance.

The Japan Sport Council hopes to choose a new proposal by the end of the year, and then develop detailed plans with a view to breaking ground in early 2017. The pressure will be on to finish in time for the opening ceremony in 2020.