HIGASHIMATSUSHIMA (Miyagi Pref.)

The Olympic flame for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games arrived in Japan from Greece on Friday, at a time when the fate of the sporting event is uncertain amid the new coronavirus pandemic.

A special jet carrying the Olympic flame landed at the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force's Matsushima base in the city of Higashimatsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, shortly after 9:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m. GMT, 4.30am UAE).

At an arrival ceremony, Japanese athletes Tadahiro Nomura and Saori Yoshida, who won gold medals in three straight Olympic Games for the men's judo and the women's wrestling, respectively, received a lantern containing the Olympic flame on the accommodation ladder of the aircraft and passed it to Yoshiro Mori, president of the Tokyo Games organizing committee. Then, Nomura and Yoshida held up the Olympic torch and lit the Olympic flame dish.

Airplanes from the Blue Impulse acrobatic team of the ASDF performed a demonstration flight and drew the five Olympic rings in the sky using colored smoke. After the rings were blown away by strong winds, the planes drew five straight lines in the five colors of the Olympic rings -- blue, yellow, black, green and red.

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, participation in the ceremony by children from three local municipalities was canceled.

The Olympic flame left Athens for Japan aboard the special jet on Thursday after being handed over to the Japanese side from Greece's Olympic Committee in a ceremony in the Greek capital on the day, which was held without a live audience due to the viral outbreak.

The flame was lit at a ceremony in Olympia, the birthplace of the ancient Olympics, on March 12, which took place also with no spectators in attendance. The Greek part of the Olympic torch relay was cut short.

Over the six days through Wednesday, the Olympic flame will be displayed in Miyagi and neighboring Iwate and Fukushima Prefecture, but on a reduced scale due to concerns over the virus.

The three Japanese prefectures were hit hard by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Fukushima is also home to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, where an unprecedented triple reactor meltdown occurred soon after the quake and tsunami.

The Olympic torch relay in Japan is set to start on Thursday from the J-Village national sports training center in Fukushima.

But the day's departure ceremony is set to be scaled down, with participation by members of the public canceled. J-Village was used as a base for the work to contain the nuclear crisis.

JIJI Press