TOKYO: The Tokyo Games organizing committee plans to transport the Olympic flame in the lantern by car instead of having it carried on the torch by runners for the time being, informed sources said Monday.

A ceremony to mark the start of the transportation will be held on a smaller scale and without spectators, the sources said.

The Olympic torch relay in Japan was set to start on Thursday at the J-Village national sports training center in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan.

Members of Japan's national soccer team that won the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2011 were scheduled to kick off the relay.

The change comes as the International Olympic Committee said Sunday that it will consider a possibility of postponing this summer's Tokyo Games amid the worldwide spread of the novel coronavirus.

The Olympic flame arrived at the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force's Matsushima base in the city of Higashimatsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, on Friday.

JIJI Press