The Tokyo Olympic torch ceremony begins in Greece Athens, March 12, 18:36
The torch ceremony for the Tokyo Olympics began in Olympia, southern Greece, at 11:30 am local time, 6:30 pm Japan time.
The ignition ceremony will be attended by IOC-International Olympic Committee Chairman Bach, Tokyo Organizing Committee Toshiaki Endo Acting Chairman, Secretary-General Suzuki of the Sports Agency and Chairman Yamashita of the Japan Olympic Committee. You.
At the Torch Relay, which starts immediately after the ceremony, Mizuki Noguchi, the gold medalist for the Athens Olympic Women's Marathon, will be the second runner as the first Japanese runner.
Amid fears of the global spread of the new coronavirus, the Greek Olympic Committee has responded unusually with the opening ceremony keeping the audience down and the press significantly reduced.
What is the ignition ceremony?
The firing ceremony will take place at the ancient Olympia Stadium and the ruins of the Temple of Hera in Olympia, southern Greece, the birthplace of the Olympics.
Olympia is the birthplace of the Olympics and is a city with a population of about 13,500, located in the western part of the Peloponnese, about 300 kilometers west of Athens. In 776 BC, the ancient Olympics are said to have begun in Olympia today as a holy celebration of the almighty god Zeus.
Stakeholders such as the IOC, the host city, and the Greek Olympic Committee will attend the ceremony. First, the Olympic Olympia will play the anthem of the Olympic Games and the national anthem of the host country. You. After that, only some attendees move to the Temple of Hera and a fire ceremony is held.
The Temple of Hera is a temple around Hera, the tallest goddess of Zeus, the wife of the ancient Greek Almighty, and is said to be the oldest building in Olympia, built in the 7th century BC.
At the firing ceremony, the women who dressed in ancient costumes headed to the ruins of the Temple of Hera, headed for the altar in front of the temple, called Apollon, the sun god in Greek mythology, and used a concave mirror. To collect the sunlight and take the torch.
And the torch is carried to the ancient Olympia stadium.
The Ancient Olympia Stadium, built in 776 BC when the Ancient Olympic Games began, is one of the most famous archeological sites in Olympia. A high embankment surrounds a square of about 192 meters in length and about 30 meters in width like a stand, and men who participated in the ancient Olympics sprinted at this place, a large number of spectators rushed to cheer It is said that The ancient Olympia stadium is said to have played for more than 11 centuries until 393.
Today, it is the venue for the Olympic fire ceremony. At the ceremony, IOC = International Olympic Committee members and officials of the Games Organizing Committee are watching over the stadium, while the torch collected at the Temple of Hera is carried to the stadium by women who have been mikini, and the torch is lit. The relay starts.
The first ignition ceremony of the Modern Olympic Games was held in Berlin in 1936
The first ceremony for the modern Olympic Games was held at the Berlin Olympics in 1936, at the beginning of the Torch Relay, invented by a then-secretary-general of the Organizing Committee.
Since then, Olympia has been chosen as the starting point for the Torch Relay.
In this regard, the IOC says it emphasizes the link between the ancient Olympics, which are said to have been taking place at this site for more than 11 centuries from 776 BC to 393 BC, and the modern forms of the modern Olympics.
On the other hand, if it becomes rainy or cloudy on the day of the ceremony and the sunlight cannot be used to make the fire, the torch will be used as the torch from the rehearsal the day before.
More recently, the firing ceremony of the winter Pyeongchang Olympics was held in the rain, and the torch was lit from a rehearsal pilot.
If the rehearsal cannot be set up by sunlight due to rain or cloudiness, it means using a pilot light from the sun by the day before.
The first torch relay woman is a woman
For the first time in the history of the Tokyo Olympics in Greece, the first torch relay will be a woman.
The first runner of the Torch Relay, which starts after the ceremony, is to be Greek every time. This time, Anna Koracaki, who won the gold medal in the shooting of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, will be the woman for the first time in history.
Koracaki commented, "It's a very honorable thing. It must be an experience that will last a lifetime."
Koracaki connects the torch to the second runner, Mizuki Noguchi, by performing a "torch kiss" where the runner transfers the torch to the next runner's torch.
The second runner, Noguchi, will perform a "torch kiss". The third runner will be a member of the European Commission, the European Union's executive body, responsible for education and youth, and will be led by a Bulgarian woman, Marija Gabriel.
Under the influence of the new coronavirus…
Olympia in southern Greece, where the ceremony is held, has a population of about 13,500, but depending on the city, the summer and winter Olympic ceremonies, which are held once every two years, may include tourists from the host city. On average, about 10,000 people visit each day.
However, due to the spread of the new coronavirus, museums and other facilities have been closed temporarily in Olympia, and all events related to the fire ceremony have been canceled.
For this reason, the city of Olympia has issued a request for postponement of the firing ceremony to May, but the IOC = International Olympic Committee and the Greek Olympic Committee have not changed the schedule and have no public audience. I decided to do it.
For this reason, the main street where souvenir shops and restaurants in Olympia are lined is quiet. In addition, public schools and universities have been closed all over Greece from 10th of this month, and sporting events have been banned for 2 weeks from 9th of this month.
19th Greek torch takeover ceremony
The Tokyo Olympic Torch Relay starts in Olympia, Greece, where the fire ceremony will take place, and will take place in Greece for eight days.
Through a route through 15 ancient archeological sites in 31 cities, including Olympia and Athens, 600 torch runners will connect the torch and run for a distance of approximately 3,500 kilometers until the takeover ceremony takes place in Athens on the 19th.
On the final day, the Greek Olympic Committee held a ceremony to take over the torch from the Greek Olympic Committee to the organizing committee of the host city, Tokyo.In each of these, a gold medalist and wrestling Saori Yoshida and a judo Nomura The torch is connected to Tadahiro, and Nomura connects to the last runner in Greece, and the torch is set on the altar.
The last runner in Greece will be Ekaterinni Stefanidi, who won the gold medal in the Women's Pole Vault at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Domestic torch relay starts on 26th
The torch will be transferred to the host city Tokyo from the Greek side in Athens on the 19th of this month, and will arrive at the Air Self Defense Force Matsushima Base in Higashimatsushima City, Miyagi Prefecture on the 20th.
In Japan, the "Fire of Reconstruction" will be exhibited for two days in Miyagi, Iwate, and Fukushima prefectures affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake from 20th to 25th.
Then, on March 26, the soccer facility “J Village” in Fukushima Prefecture, which became the base for decommissioning work following the Great East Japan Earthquake, started, and the torch relay in Japan will begin.
The torch relay is scheduled to take place in 859 municipalities, which cover all 47 prefectures over a period of 121 months, about four months until July 24, when the opening ceremony of the Olympics takes place, and about half of the country.
The number of days the relay takes place
▽ Tokyo, the host city, is on the 15th,
▽ Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures and Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa and Shizuoka prefectures with multiple Olympic competition venues
▽ Other prefectures are 2 days.
Each day of the Torch Relay begins with a torch departure ceremony that arrives from the venue the day before.
Runners run slowly, approximately 200 meters per person, and transfer the torch to the next runner's torch at the relay point.
The last city in each day plans an event called "celebration" to celebrate the arrival of the torch.