Tokyo Torch Relay Begins in 100 Days

(ATR) It may be a year late due to the pandemic but the Tokyo Olympic Torch Relay will still pass through 859 municipalities across Japan’s 47 prefectures.

Tokyo 2020 organizers confirmed on Dec. 15 in a press conference that only minor changes in order have been made to the 121-day route. The Torch Relay begins on March 25, 2021 at the J-Village soccer training center in Fukushima Prefecture and ends at Tokyo’s National Stadium for the lighting of the Olympic cauldron at the Opening Ceremony on July 23.

The planned celebration venues were also released, though the detailed Olympic Torch Relay route will not be published on Tokyo 2020’s official website until mid-February 2021.

That gives organizers time to finalize the Covid-19 countermeasures to be implemented for the Torch Relay.

Among the possible limitations could be excluding celebrities from being among the 10,000 or so torchbearers. There are concerns that their participation could draw large crowds and increase the risk of infection.

As it stands, roadside spectators are being asked to wear masks, use hand sanitizer and avoid confined spaces, crowded spaces and close-contact settings.

To mark the 100 days to go until the Torch Relay begins, the broadcasting and observation tower Tokyo Skytree was lit up on Dec. 15 in Sakura and gold, the colors of the Tokyo 2020 torch.

The flame was lit on March 12 of this year in ancient Olympia, Greece, and arrived in Japan six days later, before the March 24 announcement of the one-year postponement of the games due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It was briefly exhibited in Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures, which were hit hardest by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, before being brought to Tokyo. It was kept under wraps until Sept. 1, when it was put back on public display at the Japan Olympic Museum in Tokyo until Nov. 1.

Since Nov. 7, the Olympic flame has been on an exhibition tour of 14 Japanese prefectures designed to give those areas away from the relay route a chance to see the flame. This tour is scheduled to end on March 16.

Written by Gerard Farek

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