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Noguchi likely to be first Japanese to carry 2020 Olympic torch

Noguchi, the winner of the women's marathon in the 2004 Athens Olympics, will likely be named to serve as the first Japanese to carry the torch for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. (AFP)
Noguchi, the winner of the women's marathon in the 2004 Athens Olympics, will likely be named to serve as the first Japanese to carry the torch for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. (AFP)
08 Nov 2019 08:11:06 GMT9
08 Nov 2019 08:11:06 GMT9

TOKYO: Olympic gold medalist Mizuki Noguchi is likely to be chosen as the first Japanese to carry the torch for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, in a relay in Greece, it was learned Friday.

After the torch is lit in a ceremony at the ruins of the Temple of Hera in Olympia, Greece, on March 12, 2020, a torch relay will be held in the nation, with a Greek scheduled to serve as the first runner.

The second stage of the Greek torch relay is set to be allocated to a runner from Japan, the host nation of the 2020 Games. Noguchi, 41, the winner of the women's marathon in the 2004 Athens Olympics, will likely be named to serve in the role, informed sources said.

Following the relay in Greece, the Olympic flame will arrive in Japan by air on March 20, at the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force's Matsushima base in the city of Higashimatsushima in the northeastern prefecture of Miyagi, which was one of the three prefectures hit hardest by the March 2011 powerful earthquake and tsunami.

The torch will be then displayed in Miyagi and the other two disaster-stricken prefectures, Iwate and Fukushima, in that order, under a "Flame of Recovery" concept, to be followed by the host nation's Olympic torch relay, which is set to start on March 26 in Fukushima.

JIJI Press

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