Same time same place next year …The relay will start from the J-Village soccer training center and last for 121 days while traversing all of Japan’s 47 prefectures. The previous schedule for each region was maintained aside from a one-day adjustment to fit next year’s calendar.
September 28, 2020
The Tokyo Olympic torch relay will start on March 25 in Fukushima Prefecture, Tokyo Games organizers said Monday, in keeping with the plan that was developed prior to the games’ one-year postponement due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The relay will start from the J-Village soccer training center and last for 121 days while traversing all of Japan’s 47 prefectures. The previous schedule for each region was maintained aside from a one-day adjustment to fit next year’s calendar.
The Olympics are slated to open on July 23 next summer followed by the Paralympics on Aug. 24.
Approximately 10,000 runners who had already been selected will be given priority for the nationwide relay. Organizers said they will stick with the local routes and events that were already planned in principle but may make future adjustments according to the status of each region.
The Paralympic torch relay will be held in August.
Athens Olympics women’s marathon gold medalist Mizuki Noguchi (L) receives the Tokyo Olympics flame from first runner Anna Korakaki, the 2016 Rio Games shooting gold medalist, in the torch relay in Olympia, Greece, on March 12, 2020.
Organizers had been seeking to shorten the torch relay schedule in order to reduce swelling costs caused by the games’ delay but abandoned the idea after receiving strong disapproval from local governments already banking on the event.
As a result, only reducing the size of the vehicle convoys, staff and pageantry of some of the events connected to the relay are under review as potential areas for cost cutting and streamlining the games.
The Olympic flame was lit earlier this year at the site of ancient Olympia in Greece and arrived in Japan four days before the games were postponed on March 24.
The flame has remained in the host country since and is currently on public display at the Japan Olympic Museum near the main stadium for the games in central Tokyo until Nov. 1.
Kazumasa Aoki: Vice President, Radioactivity Monitoring Center for Citizen / Nobuyoshi Ito: Iitate Village Resident / Jun Nakamura: Co-Chairman, Fukuichi Area Environmental Radiation Monitoring Project
Thanks to FCCJ for this interview and also for restoring bilingual format. Thanks also for an excellent translation by Mary Joyce, whose contribution is often unmentioned. Although the Covid-19 and Fukushima disaster appear unrelated, I see parallel relationship. Abe’s Japanese government tends to hide the truth as if the politicians believe in the three monkeys carved in Nikko Shrine. See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil. The government’s reluctance to measure and publish the soil contamination at Fukushima is analogous to that of their reluctance to conduct PCR test to grasp the real spread of the corona virus. I used to use a term “Okami to Hitsuji (sheep)” to describe the relationship between Japanese government and the docile citizens. Making a reference to the above observations, however, it is more like “Okami to Hatsuka Nezumi (white mice)” because people are used as a subject of a massive Bio-Medical experiments. I do not know any other countries, in which the government can get away with their misconducts of this magnitude. However, I see some hope by listening to the three gentlemen who gave the interview. They speak the facts in much better Japanese than the average Japanese politicians. Thanks again to FCCJ to shed a light on the news, which would be buried otherwise.
Dentsu Corporation, the hired PR company to calm the fears of the Japanese public, is using every gimmick in the book to deny the existing radiation risks to promote the 2020 Tokyo Olympics
Japanese actress Satomi Ishihara, center, attends a promotional event for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic torch relays at an elementary school in Tokyo, on Jan. 16, 2020.
January 18, 2020
TOKYO (Kyodo) — The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games torch relay is likely to pass through the town of Futaba, which hosts the disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan, as the government plans to lift the mandatory evacuation order for the town on March 4, sources familiar with the matter said Friday.
The town of Okuma, a co-host of the nuclear plant, was already included in the first day of the torch relay. Fukushima Prefecture aims to highlight on the global stage its reconstruction from the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.
Organizers announced in July 2018 that Fukushima would be the starting point for the torch relay in the country. Last March, Yoshiro Mori, the organizing committee’s president, revealed that the relay would begin some 20 kilometers from the Fukushima plant at the J-Village national soccer training center, which was used as an operational base for handling the nuclear crisis.
The Olympic torch will arrive in Japan on March 20 and the flame will be taken to Ishinomaki Minamihama Tsunami Recovery Memorial Park in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture.
It will then travel by train through Miyagi and Iwate prefectures before making its way to Fukushima. The three prefectures were hit hardest by the powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
The Japan leg of the relay will begin on March 26, 2020, two weeks after the flame lighting ceremony in Greece, and will carry the torch across all 47 prefectures in the country over a period of 121 days.
The Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to be held between July 24 and Aug. 9, followed by the Paralympics from Aug. 25 to Sept. 6.
The first 3 days of the 2020 Olympic Torch Relay to start and go thru Fukushima prefecture.
Quote from Robin Lawrence: “The route seems like a ridiculously cynical one. Doublespeak played out before a watching world.
No one would conduct such a relay in the Chernobyl exclusion zone but this? The IOC, the Japanese government and the UN hierarchy would endorse turning a blind eye into farce.
The civilisation that this symbolism represents exhibits no heart or care for our future wellbeing. A facile attitude.”
Torchbearer application for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Torch Relay opens Monday
The torchbearer application for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Torch Relay opened Monday, which is the relay that brings the Olympic flame from Olympia, Greece, to Tokyo, Japan, for the beginning of the Summer Games.
June 17th 2019
Megan Marples and Katia Hetter, CNN – The torchbearer application for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Torch Relay opened Monday, which is the relay that brings the Olympic flame from Olympia, Greece, to Tokyo, Japan, for the beginning of the Summer Games.
About 10,000 torchbearers, half of which will be members of the public, will wind their way through all 47 Japanese prefectures to safely deliver the flame to the Olympic cauldron.
Each leg of the relay is about 200 meters (656 feet), although one leg could be longer than the other. The route was designed to be easily accessible for almost everyone in Japan, with 98% of the population being within an hour car or train ride away from the route.
The relay will begin on March 26, 2020, at the J-Village National Training Centre in Fukushima Prefecture and will last 121 days.
The application says that all people are eligible to apply, regardless of nationality, age, gender or impairment. Applicants must be born on or before April 1, 2008. Children 17 and younger on March 1, 2020, will need a parent or guardian’s permission to participate.
“In 2020, the Olympic flame will not only symbolize the sunrise of a new era spreading the hope that will light our way, but will also serve to spread the joy and passion of the Japanese around the Olympic movement as the Games approach,” the Tokyo Organising Committee said in a statement.
Three categories are outlined in the application to describe the selection approach.
The first is “spirit of reconstruction and perseverance,” which applies to people who have demonstrated the ability to overcome great adversity.
The second category is “tolerance to embrace diversity” for people who have united a diverse group of individuals.
The third category is “unity experienced through the celebration” for people who can bring together a community by acting as torchbearers.
In honor of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, there will be a special display called “Flame of Recovery” before the official relay begins. It will begin on March 20, 2020, and last for two days each in the Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures.
Daisuke Obana, the torch relay uniform designer, commented on the significance of the display.
“In Japan, these Games are being referred to as ‘the Recovery Games’ and so the Olympic flame will start its journey from an area affected by recent natural disasters. I hope that the Olympic flame that is transported to Japan will bring with it the encouragement and thoughts of people from all over the world,” Obana said in a statement.
Application details can be found here. Successful applicants will be notified on or after December 2019.
By Kolin Kobayashi
June 19, 2019 The Tokyo Olympic Committee has published the Olympic torch relay race route.It is clear that they are trying to “normalize”, and sweep “the traces of the Fukushima disaster. The Tokyo Olympics are the denial of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.We will not let them do this unopposed.
It’s official! The 2020 Tokyo Olympic torch relay starts at the J Village Sports Complex in Fukushima, which is just 10 miles from the crippled nuke plant.
Olympics: Tokyo 2020 torch relay route revealed, uniforms unveiled
June 1, 2019
TOKYO (Reuters) – Tokyo 2020 organisers on Saturday unveiled the uniforms to be worn by 10,000 volunteer runners during the torch relay and presented further details about the route the relay will take.
Organisers said the torch will travel through all 47 of Japan’s prefectures – from Hokkaido in the north to the southern island of Okinawa – and most of the country will have the chance to see the torch with 98% percent of the population residing within an hour’s distance from the route.
The 121-day relay will begin on March 16 at the J-Village in Fukushima, which is Japanese football’s national training centre and a symbol of resilience during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed almost 16,000 people.
Games organisers have sought to stress the importance of Tokyo 2020 as the ‘reconstruction Olympics’ and it was evident in the choice of the route, which will pass through Okuma, where part of the Fukushima nuclear complex is located, and past Kumamoto Castle, which suffered heavy earthquake damage in 2016.
“It is not just about places where people can come or around landmarks, but the torch will also visit areas affected by the Great Japan Earthquake and Kumamoto Castle, recovering from the Kumamoto earthquake,” said Miho Takeda, a Tokyo 2020 committee member and five-time Olympic medallist in synchronized swimming.
“The relay will go through areas of Japan that are working hard to recover from natural disasters.”
The torch will also visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and pass Mount Fuji before arriving at the National Stadium in Tokyo on July 24 during the Olympics opening ceremony.
The runners’ uniform, designed by fashion designer Daisuke Obana, was unveiled by multiple Olympic gold medallist judoka Tadahiro Nomura.
The uniforms, which are produced in part from recycled plastic bottles, incorporate a diagonally-draped red sash similar to those used as batons in Ekiden, Japan’s famous long distance relay events.
“The torch bearer uniform is eco-friendly. Coca Cola collected plastic bottles in their company and recycled them to use them in the uniform material,” Nomura said.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, center, attends a ceremony held on April 14, 2019, in Okuma, a Fukushima Prefecture town hit by the 2011 tsunami-quake disaster and subsequent nuclear crisis to celebrate the opening of the newly constructed town government building.
May 28, 2019
TOKYO (Kyodo) — The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games torch relay may pass through a town in northeastern Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture that was devastated by nuclear meltdowns following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, sources said Tuesday.
The Olympic torch relay course could include the environs of the No. 1 reactor at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in Okuma as part of the organizers’ efforts to promote the games as the “reconstruction Olympics,” the sources said.
The government lifted its mandatory evacuation order over parts of Okuma last month, but most of the town still remains a no-go zone. The relay will pass through the parts of Okuma and the surrounding area where the evacuation order has been lifted.
After declaring that problems containing radioactive water accumulating at the No. 1 reactor were “under control” during the 2020 Olympic bid process, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the government have used the games to showcase Japan’s recovery from the massive earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011 and ensuing nuclear disaster.
But in districts of Okuma where the evacuation order has been lifted — which covers 40 percent of the town’s total land — only a tiny percentage of residents have returned, with some saying they have been left behind while more emphasis is placed on showing off the progress of recovery.
Organizers announced in July 2018 that Fukushima would be the starting point for the relay. In March, organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori revealed the relay will begin some 20 kilometers from Fukushima Daiichi at the J-Village national soccer training center, which was used as an operational base for handling the crisis.
The Olympic torch will arrive in Japan on March 20, 2020, and the flame will be taken to Ishinomaki Minamihama Tsunami Recovery Memorial Park in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, which was devastated eight years ago.
It will then travel by train through Miyagi and Iwate prefectures — the two other prefectures hit hardest by the powerful earthquake and tsunami — before making its way to Fukushima.
The Japan leg of the relay will begin on March 26, 2020, two weeks after the flame lighting ceremony in Greece, and will travel across all 47 prefectures in Japan over a period of 121 days.
The Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to be held between July 24 and Aug. 9, followed by the Paralympics from Aug. 25 to Sept. 6.
2020 Olympic torch relay to start in Fukushima on March 26
July 12, 2018
In total denial of the omnipresent radioactive contamination risks…
Weightlifter Yoichi Itokazu, left, waves the Olympic flag while Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, second from right, waves the Paralympic flag during a Tokyo 2020 Games flag tour event at the Okinawa Prefectural Government building in Naha in this Oct. 30, 2017
TOKYO — A coordination council comprising organizations involved in the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics has decided that the torch relay for the 2020 Games will depart from Fukushima Prefecture on March 26, 2020, as part of efforts to encourage residents affected by the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters.
According to the Fukushima Prefectural Government, 44,878 residents still remained evacuated within and outside Fukushima Prefecture as of July 5, 2018. At a meeting of the coordination council held in Tokyo on July 12, top officials from the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the central government and other organizations agreed to pick Fukushima as the starting point.
The organizing committee had thus far given equal consideration to Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures — which were hit hardest by the March 11, 2011 disasters — in line with the banner of the “disaster recovery Olympics” it raised during its bid to invite the games to Tokyo. However, as the number of evacuees from Fukushima stands highest among the three prefectures, and the fact that the prefecture continues to face difficulties emanating from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant catastrophe, the officials decided to choose the prefecture to symbolize disaster relief efforts.
“We wanted to respect the original starting point of our bidding campaigns,” said former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who chairs the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee.
The council also announced the schedule for the 121-day torch relay, including seven days for the torch to travel between relay courses. Such travel between different prefectures will largely take place by car, while that to Okinawa Prefecture and Hokkaido will be carried out via ferry.
After spending three days being passed from runner to runner through Fukushima Prefecture, the torch will move to Tochigi Prefecture, then travel south to Gunma and Nagano prefectures, before heading to the Tokai and Kinki regions and the islands of Shikoku and Kyushu. After reaching the southernmost island prefecture of Okinawa, the torch relay will start heading north on May 2, 2020, moving to the Chugoku, Hokuriku and Tohoku regions mainly along the Sea of Japan coast, before reaching the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido on June 14. From there, the torch relay will once again move southward, covering Iwate and Miyagi prefectures for three days each. As of late June 2018, some 5,022 Iwate Prefecture residents and 3,556 Miyagi Prefecture residents remained evacuated due to the 2011 disasters.
From Miyagi, the torch will then be transported to Shizuoka Prefecture using expressways. After a three-day leg each in Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama prefectures near Tokyo, and a two-day leg each in Yamanashi and Ibaraki prefectures, the Olympic flame will finally arrive in Tokyo on July 10. The torch will then be passed between all of the capital’s 62 wards, cities, towns and villages, including those on islands south of Tokyo’s city center, for a period of up to 15 days.
During the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the torch relay departed from Okinawa, then still under control of the United States, covering a total of four different routes. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) currently does not allow splitting courses.
The respective organizing committees set up in all of Japan’s 47 prefectures will draw up detailed route maps by the end of the year, while the Fukushima Prefectural Government will select the departure point. After the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee compiles the route plans, they will be finalized upon gaining the green light from the IOC by the summer of 2019. After the routes and the number of runners are decided, each prefecture will start selecting torch bearers.
The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games meets on July 12 to approve the start of the 2020 Olympic flame relay.
First leg of 2020 Olympic torch relay to start in Fukushima
The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games meets on July 12 to approve the start of the 2020 Olympic flame relay.
July 12, 2018
The Olympic torch relay will start in Fukushima Prefecture in 2020 to reinforce the image that the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will be about showcasing the reconstruction from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games approved the plan at a meeting on July 12 to have the torch relay start in Fukushima Prefecture from March 26, 2020. The relay will then travel through all prefectures of Japan before entering Tokyo on July 10, 2020.
“The struggles and sadness experienced by residents of the three hardest-hit prefectures (of the 2001 earthquake and tsunami) are tremendous,” Yoshiro Mori, the committee president, said at the organizing committee meeting. “Among the three, Fukushima Prefecture continues to be the one with the most number of evacuees.”
Each prefecture will establish a committee to organize the relay within their jurisdiction. Those committees will decide on the exact route the Olympic flame will take through their prefectures. Those courses are expected to be completed by the end of 2018.
The Olympic organizing committee will compile those route plans and decide on the specific course of the torch by summer 2019.
There were two proposals for the start of the Olympic torch relay.
One called for the start to be in one of the three hardest-hit prefectures from the 2011 disasters–Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate.
The other was to follow the precedent set by the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics and start the relay in Okinawa Prefecture.
The experts panel within the organizing committee that considered the two proposals pointed out that starting the relay in the Tohoku region could lead to increased expenses because of the need for measures to deal with the cold weather in late March in those prefectures.
But organizing committee members increasingly held the view that there was a need to transmit the message that the Games would be all about recovery and rebuilding from the 2011 natural disasters and accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
That led to the decision to start the relay in Fukushima Prefecture.
Under the general outline agreed to, once the flame leaves Fukushima Prefecture, it would proceed south through the northern Kanto region before moving westward to the Chubu, southern Kinki, Shikoku and Kyushu regions. The flame would be transported by ferry from Kyushu to Okinawa Prefecture and back.
The relay would then pass through the Chugoku, northern Kinki, Hokuriku and Tohoku regions before going to Hokkaido. From the northernmost main island, the relay will proceed along the Pacific coast of the main Honshu island and go through Iwate and Miyagi prefectures before making its way around the southern Kanto region and entering the nation’s capital on July 10, 2020.
In Tokyo, the relay will extend over 15 days and pass through all 23 wards as well as outlying cities, towns and villages.
While the International Olympic Committee has set a broad outline for Olympic torch relays that they should be completed within 100 days, the Tokyo organizing committee has been granted an exception, and the relay will take up to 121 days.
Before the start of the Olympic torch relay, the organizing committee will display the flame brought to Japan from the traditional lighting ceremony in Greece as the “light of reconstruction” in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures.
Japanese actress Satomi Ishihara, center, attends a promotional event for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic torch relays at an elementary school in Tokyo, on Jan. 16, 2020.
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