2 Years to Go: Themes of Reconstruction Seen Not Reflected in Tokyo Games

August 3, 2018

Ishinomaki, Miyagi Pref.- Concerns linger that the basic themes of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, to show that the northeastern Japan region is close to completing reconstruction after the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, are not well reflected in the planning and preparations for the events.

Part of the Olympic torch relay and some sports events for the Tokyo Games will be held in the three hardest-hit Tohoku northeastern Japan prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.

The Olympic cauldron of the previous Tokyo Games in 1964 has been loaned for display to the Miyagi coastal city of Ishinomaki as a symbol of reconstruction.

During the Ishinomaki Fukko (Reconstruction) Marathon in June, the cauldron was lit in a park in the city. It also will be loaned to Iwate, Fukushima and elsewhere starting in fiscal 2019.

The torch relay is set to start on March 26, 2020, in Fukushima, home to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holding Inc.'s <9501> Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, which was heavily damaged in the disaster.

The torch will spend 121 days traveling through all of the country's 47 prefectures, including three days each in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.

Ahead of the relay, the Olympic flame will be exhibited for two days in each of the three Tohoku prefectures.

For the 2020 Games, a baseball match and a softball match will be held in Fukushima and several soccer games will take place in Miyagi.

"I think more sports events in Tohoku would help reconstruction," said Isao Sugawara, a 55-year-old corporate worker from the Miyagi town of Onagawa, who participated in the marathon.

The 2020 Olympics and Paralympics "are in Tokyo anyway, even if they are called the Games for reconstruction," said Masaki Otsuka, 58, who lives in makeshift housing in the city of Fukushima. "I feel like they are far away from us."

Akane Seino, 23, who returned home in the Fukushima town of Namie in September last year after evacuation from the nuclear disaster, voiced hope that people will be aware also of "the negative point that reconstruction remains incomplete."

"I think there is no need to call them the Games for reconstruction," Seino suggested.

Only about 26 pct of the mayors of municipalities in the three Tohoku prefectures agreed that the themes of reconstruction are well reflected in the preparations for the 2020 Games, according to a survey conducted by Jiji Press from last year to this year.

Miyagi Governor Yoshihiro Murai told a news conference on July 9 that he will not feel it real that the Tokyo Games feature reconstruction "until at least the torch relay starts." Jiji Press