Seiko Hashimoto, the Tokyo 2020 organisng committee president, told an audience of 1,000, “For the past year as the entire world underwent a difficult period, the Olympic flame was kept alive quietly but powerfully. This small flame never lost hope and it waited for this day like a cherry blossom bud just about to bloom.”
Hashimoto, who competed in seven Olympic Games, said that the flame will “carry the hopes of the Japanese people and wishes for peace from people around the world” along the journey, which will cover all 47 prefectures of Japan before reaching the Olympic Games opening ceremony on July 23.
Also present at the start ceremony were Japan’s Olympic Minister Tamayo Marukawa and Tokyo governor Koike Yuriko.
Some of the football matches will be played in the disaster-hit area as the Tokyo Olympics has been billed the “Reconstruction Olympics” when the Japanese capital launched its bid soon after the disaster.
“Reconstruction Olympics’ has always been the theme for us,” said…