The Olympic flame will burn brightly throughout the Tohoku region when the torch relay for the 2020 Tokyo Games travels through areas that were devastated by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
The Olympic flame will burn brightly throughout the Tohoku region when the torch relay for the 2020 Tokyo Games travels through areas that were devastated by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
The organizing committee for the Olympics and Paralympics submitted a plan in February to the International Olympic Committee stipulating the torch's route through northeastern Japan. The relay will also pass through World Heritage sites and other tourist spots.
The torch relay is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2020 ahead of the July 24-Aug. 9 Olympic Games. Further details will be announced by 2017.
Committee officials said their plan was presented by Toshiro Muto at an IOC board meeting that was held through Feb. 28 in Rio de Janiero.
The plan, which was well received by the IOC, underscored the importance of improving the Paralympics. The Paralympics were held in Tokyo in 1964, and the 2020 event will mark the first time the international competition for athletes with an impairment will be hosted twice by the same city.
The organizers plan to appoint personnel related to the Paralympics to major committee posts to discuss issues surrounding the Paralympic and the Olympic Games.
The plan stated that in 2018 the committee will begin recruiting volunteers from universities nationwide to work at both events.
It also said the athlete’s village will “provide athletes with opportunities to experience diverse Japanese cultures, hospitality and the 'Cool Japan' phenomenon.”
Tickets for the Olympics and the Aug. 25-Sept. 6 Paralympics will go on sale in 2019.
The committee said it will file a plan by 2016 on how the various Olympic venues will be utilized after the Games are completed.
Elsewhere, Hiromi Kawamura, organizing committee manager in charge of culture and education, was appointed March 3 to the IOC secretariat in Lausanne, Switzerland. Kawamura's stint begins on April 1.