The Tokyo Olympics torch relay was begun after a year of coronavirus delays on Thursday, and officials expected it to be a ray of light after the problems caused by the pandemic.

But they would like the rest of the route during the 121-day relay, which would stop Japan and include 10,000 runners before the Olympic cauldron lit the torch on July 23. Organizers hope that Riley will dismiss uncertainties about how the Games were held during a pandemic, and Tokyo 2020 director Seiko Hashimoto called the flame “a ray of light at the end of darkness.”

The Official Statements:

At the ceremony held at the J-Village Sports Complex in Fukushima, he said: “This little hope was never broken and the day waited like a cherry blossom.”  Azusa Iwashimizu, one of the 2011 World Cup-winning Japanese soccer players, was the first to carry a rose gold cherry blossom torch with the team’s former players. She provided light for Asakura Owada, a Fukushima high school student, who wore an official white tracksuit with a red diagonal stripe to all runners. A handful of fans, in their required masks, watched Riley from his second segment.  But with restricted cheers and large crowds to protect the virus, clicking the camera makes more noise. “I think it is a lack of enthusiasm to some extent because there are rules,” Tarsua Ozawa told AFP in the city of Naraha.

Organizers were making final preparations for the relay last year when the virus made the unprecedented decision to postpone the games, as did the disruption of the global playing field. A year later, the pandemic is still in full swing despite the launch of the vaccine, and many in Japan fear an increase in Olympic cases will occur. Foreign spectators are excluded from the Games and there is a possibility of a cap for domestic fans, so the relay is seen as an important opportunity to generate positive momentum. which was hit by the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster. The sport was initially introduced as the “Recovery Olympics”, demonstrating rebuilding in the region.  The relay will pass through some cities, which will only be partially open to the public, as radiation contamination continues.