- Tweeter
republish
The 2020 sports year will be marked by the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. Nearly 80,000 volunteers will support the thousands of athletes for the largest planetary gathering in the sports world.
Four years after Rio de Janeiro, it is Tokyo's turn to be the center of the sports world, for the space of a summer. And as in Brazil, Russia will be at the heart of discussions after its exclusion decided on December 9 by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to punish the falsification of the control data given to the agency.
In Rio, Russian athletics had been banned because of revelations about a state doping system. This time, all sports are concerned. Russian athletes, handpicked according to their anti-doping "locker", should nevertheless be allowed to compete under a neutral flag, as was the case for four years in athletics.
Fear of the heat wave
A large part of the athletes should in any case be housed in the same boat with regard to weather conditions. The organizers are indeed afraid of scorching heat. Last summer, the Tokyo region had already experienced a heat wave during the pre-Olympic events.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has relocated marathons and walking events to Sapporo (more than 1,000 km north of the capital), where summer temperatures are more moderate. The city of Tokyo finally ranked bad thanks to the IOC's decision. Handicapped by the heat of Doha during the 2019 Worlds, the rest of planetary athletics could therefore still suffer from the weather, this time in Japan.
But in the new Olympic stadium, it will probably take more to scare the Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who will have the opportunity, in the next Games, to equal her compatriot Usain Bolt by winning a third Olympic title in 100 m. She would then become the greatest sprinter of all time.
Fukushima in the spotlight
The new enclosure was officially delivered to the Japanese authorities on December 16, 2019, three years after the start of construction. Built on the site of the former national stadium built for the 1964 Olympic Games, this 60,000-seat stadium, designed by the famous Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, is inspired by traditional techniques, notably the significant use of wood.
The Olympic stadium, which is estimated to cost 157 billion yen (1.3 billion euros), will host the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as athletics and a few football matches.
The Olympic flame will start its tour of Japan on March 26 from Fukushima, the prefecture devastated by a tsunami and a nuclear disaster following an earthquake in March 2011. It will then cross the 47 prefectures of Japan during '' a 121-day journey through Mount Fuji or the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
We must tell you all about the big day out #Miraitowa and #Someity had at the # Tokyo2020 Olympic Stadium. 🏟️
They got to experience the beautiful exterior, what it's like to be a spectator and even got to go on the track !!
Stay tuned all day as we share more amazing photos! 😍 pic.twitter.com/TB2vOsiipI
Japan has been an Olympic land since the 1964 Summer Games, the first to take place on the Asian continent. Japan is hosting its fourth Games in 2020, including the winter games of 1972 in Sapporo and 1998 in Nagano.