Tsukada was mayor during the early preparation and bid process for the
1998 Winter Olympics as well as through the Games. He served as Vice President of the
Nagano Olympic Organizing Committee (NAOC) from 1991 when the committee was officially established. Following the closing ceremonies of the
1994 Winter Olympics, an International Environmental Expedition had departed
Lillehammer, Norway. They traveled by dogsled, sailboat and bicycle over two and a half years. On September 25, 1996, 500 days before the games started, they arrived in Nagano where their message was delivered to Mayor Tsukada. Following the 1998 Winter Olympics, Tsukada sent a similar message to the organizers in
Salt Lake City. Tsukada organized the first '''Host City Mayors' Conference''' to discuss Olympics in the 21st Century. The mayors at the time from
Sapporo (
1972 Winter Olympics),
Calgary (
1988 Winter Olympics),
Albertville (
1992 Winter Olympics), Lillehammer (
1994 Winter Olympics) and
Salt Lake City (
2002 Winter Olympics) attended, along with the mayor of
Olympia (home of the
Ancient Olympic Games) as observer. Following the Mayors' Conference, a declaration was released which included: With 200 days to go before the opening of the 1998 Games, a live celebration in Tokyo, Nagano, and Sydney, the host of the
2000 Summer Olympics, took place on NAOC's webpage, with Tsukada in Nagano and
Frank Sartor, the
Lord Mayor of Sydney at the time. In December 1997, Tsukada, along with
Japanese Olympic Committee President
Hironoshin Furuhashi, and others, headed a delegation to the
Hellenic Olympic Committee. At the
Temple of Hera, Tsukada and the NAOC received the flame for the start of the
1998 Winter Olympics torch relay. On February 6, 6, 1998 the Olympic flame arrived in Nagano City after a three-route relay across Japan.
Kristi Yamaguchi (American
sansei and gold medalist
figure skater at the
1992 Winter Olympics),
Masae Kasai (gold medalist in
volleyball at the
1964 Summer Olympics), and
Yuko Emoto (gold medalist in
judo at the
1996 Summer Olympics) passed their flames to
Eishiro Saito, President of NAOC, and two NAOC Vice presidents,
Goro Yoshimura (the governor of
Nagano Prefecture) and Tsukada, who in turn lit the flame of
IOC President
Juan Antonio Samaranch. In February 1998, at the start of the 1998 Winter Olympics, Tsukada described the benefits that Olympics brought to Nagano: "We have received tangible and intangible assets... We went through various difficulties and hardships as the host city, but it has been worth it". During the early days of promoting Nagano as a possible host for the 1998 Games, Tsukada came to realize that the city of Nagano had limited name recognition. When talking with
IOC members in
Albertville in 1989, they asked Tsukada whether it snowed in Nagano, confusing Nagano with the city of
Nagoya which had lost the bid to
Seoul for the
1988 Summer Olympics. It was Mayor Tsukuda who passed the
Olympic flag to
Salt Lake City Mayor
Deedee Corradini at the closing ceremonies of the 1998 Winter Games. Following the
2002 Winter Olympic bid scandal that broke in late 1998, Mayor Tsukada was quoted as saying: Following the scandal to hit Salt Lake City, it was learned that NAOC spent approximately $14 million to woo
IOC members. Tsukada said: "The burden is too much ... some moderation, some balance" must return to the Olympics. ==Mayoralty elections==