Milan, 25 March 2021 – Exactly one year ago the Tokyo Games were postponed due to the pandemic. 12 months later, the Olympic torch left Fukushima – during an armored event with no public – and it will take four months to arrive in the Japanese capital, where the five-ring festival will officially begin on 23 July. The relay has seen protagonists in these first bars some of the players of the women’s national football team, winners of the World Cup in 2011, the year of the disaster (earthquake and accident at the nuclear power plant) that caused 18,000 deaths in Fukushima. And this is why it was decided that the first stage of this journey, which will involve about 10 thousand torchbearers – including the oldest woman in the world (Kane Tanaka, born January 2, 1903) – and will touch all 47 prefectures of the archipelago – should be the city that was the scene of such a tragedy.
No gatherings
Fukushima was the symbol of the region’s attempted rebirth after the triple misfortune and now it is also the symbol of the Tokyo Olympics, which in Japan have been renamed the “Reconstruction Games”. Due to the pandemic, the authorities have asked the public to limit the gatherings during the journey of the torch, avoiding excessive manifestations of enthusiasm, and the same runners will be subjected to stringent rules on medical checks.
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