Olympic torch relay begins after year’s delay

IWAKI, Japan: The Tokyo Olympics torch relay got underway on Thursday after a year’s coronavirus delay, with officials hoping it will be a “ray of light” after the problems caused by the pandemic.

Spectators were barred from the departure ceremony and first leg over ongoing fears about the coronavirus, which forced the 2020 Games’ historic postponement a year ago.

But they will line the rest of the route during the 121-day relay, which will criss-cross Japan and involve 10,000 runners before the torch lights the Olympic cauldron on July 23.

Organisers are hoping the relay will dispel doubts about holding the Games during a pandemic, and Tokyo 2020 chief Seiko Hashimoto called the flame “a ray of light at the end of the darkness”.

“This little flame never lost hope and it waited for this day like a cherry blossom bud just about to bloom,” she told the ceremony at Fukushima’s J-Village sports complex, which was a base for responding to the 2011 nuclear disaster.

Azusa Iwashimizu, one of Japan’s 2011 World Cup-winning women’s footballers, was the first to carry the rose-gold, cherry blossom-shaped torch, accompanied by former teammates.

She passed the flame to Fukushima high school student Asato Owada, who like all the runners wore an official white tracksuit with a red diagonal stripe.

A handful of fans, wearing their compulsory masks, watched the relay from its second section. But with cheering and large crowds banned for virus safety, the loudest sound came from clicking cameras.

“I think it somewhat lacks excitement because there are rules,” Tetsuya Ozawa told AFP in the town of Naraha. “I think more people would have come and there would have been more excitement if there wasn’t coronavirus.”

Organisers were making final preparations for the relay last year when the virus prompted the unprecedented decision to postpone the Games, as sport around the world ground to a halt.

A year on, the pandemic is still in full swing despite vaccine roll-outs, and many in Japan fear the Olympics will cause a spike in cases.

Overseas spectators are barred from the Games, and limits are likely on domestic fans, so the relay is seen as a vital opportunity to build positive momentum.