Olympic Flame for 2020 Games to Arrive in Japan at Miyagi

July 31, 2018

Fukushima- Yoshiro Mori, president of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic organizing committee, said Monday that the Olympic flame for the 2020 Games will arrive in Japan at Miyagi Prefecture.

The announcement was made at a board meeting in J-Village, a soccer facility straddling the towns of Naraha and Hirono in Fukushima Prefecture, which neighbors Miyagi in the country's northeast.

The flame, to be lit in Olympia, Greece, the original site of the ancient Olympic Games, will arrive at the Matsushima base of the Air Self-Defense Force in the city of Higashimatsushima, according to Mori.

"We've been given a valuable opportunity to show our recovery to our country and the world," said Yoshiaki Sano, deputy governor of Miyagi, who attended the board meeting. He also noted that Higashimatsushima neighbors Ishinomaki, one of the Miyagi cities hit hardest by the March 2011 tsunami unleashed by a 9.0-magninude earthquake.

Monday's board meeting was also attended by Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori and postdisaster reconstruction minister Masayoshi Yoshino.

The Olympic flame plan is part of a 2020 Games philosophy of supporting reconstruction from the 2011 disaster.

After arriving in Higashimatsushima, the Olympic flame will be exhibited for two days in each of the three hardest-hit prefectures of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima, ahead of the torch relay.

The relay, which will start in Fukushima on Mach 26, 2020, will continue until July 24, 2020, the day of the Olympic opening ceremony. The torch will travel through all of the country's 47 prefectures.

The committee confirmed that it will urge the Japanese government to introduce daylight saving time by turning the clocks forward two hours during the 2020 Games as a countermeasure against the expected summer heat, as requested by Mori to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday.

Meanwhile, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga indicated at a press conference in Tokyo on Monday that the government is cautious about the idea. Jiji Press