The torch relay relay for the Tokyo Olympics in Japan, which will begin on July 23rd, began today (25th) in Fukushima Prefecture.
The members of the Japanese national team’Nadeshiko Japan’ who won the Women’s Soccer World Cup Germany at the time of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake as the first relay runners appeared.
The 16 members of Nadeshiko Japan departed from the soccer facility J Village in Fukushima Prefecture at 9:40 am local time on the 25th with a torch.
J Village was the base of the initial repair work at the time of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Fukushima Prefecture Governor Masao Uchibori said in a commemorative address that day, “Fukushima Prefecture suffered severe pain in 2011 (due to the earthquake) and is still recovering.”
To prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, the commemorative event was held on a small scale with the attendance of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee officials and local government representatives without Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
The torch relay is scheduled to run across 47 Japan with approximately 10,000 runners for 121 days until the opening ceremony on July 23rd.
The Japanese government and the organizing committee have prepared quarantine measures, such as recommending that the event be viewed live online to prevent the spread of corona during the torch relay.
The torch was originally lit in Olympia, Greece in March last year and arrived in Japan, but it has been kept in Japan for a year as the Olympics were postponed in the aftermath of the novel coronavirus.
The Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have decided not to attract foreign audiences during the Tokyo Olympics.
VOA news