Olympic Flame Returns

(ATR) The Olympic Flame will be back on public display in Japan beginning on Tuesday.

Tokyo 2020 organizers held a ceremony on Monday to mark the return of the Olympic Flame, which has been out of public view since early April.

It will be on display at the Olympic Museum of the Japanese Olympic Committee headquarters in Tokyo until November 1.

Yasuhiro Yamashita, the president of the Japanese Olympic Committee, said "I am confident that the display of the Olympic Flame in Japan will be a heartening symbol for" athletes training for next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Lit during a ceremony in Ancient Olympia on March 18, the flame was flown from Greece to Fukushima, Japan where the Olympic Torch Relay for the 2020 Games was supposed to start on March 26. But soon after the flame touched down in Japan, the relay was put on hold as a countermeasure to the spread of the coronavirus. And days later, the IOC and Tokyo 2020 postponed the Games by one year, including the four month relay through Japan.

Before today, the Flame had not been seen in public since it was taken away from limited viewing in Fukushima on April 8.

"There was a lot of drama surrounding the delivery of the Olympic Flame, but we overcame various difficulties, just as track athletes must clear hurdles, and now it is on display here," Tokyo 2020 president Yoshiro Mori said at the ceremony on Monday.

The flame will go back into hiding after the museum exhibition, returning to public display for the Torch Relay next spring.

So far, Tokyo 2020 is sticking with the original torch relay schedule of 120 days, beginning on March 25, 2021 at the J-Village soccer facility in Fukushima and ending at the Opening Ceremony on July 23. About 10,000 runners across all of Japan’s 47 prefectures will act as torchbearers.

Homepage photo: ATR

Written by Gerard Farek

For general comments or questions,click here.

Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.