As plans forge ahead for the Tokyo Olympics, the Okinawa island Miyakojima has banned the torch relay from running through it.
As plans forge ahead for the Tokyo Olympics, the Okinawa island Miyakojima has banned the torch relay from running through it. The relay, which began March 25 in Fukushima, has already been detoured several times, once being directed into an empty park in Osaka, and again rerouted in Matsuyama, the capital of the Ehime Prefecture. The Tokyo Olympic organizers and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are set to unveil plans this week to explain how 15,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes can compete in Japan in three months in the midst of a pandemic. The Tokyo Olympics, originally scheduled to begin last year in late July, has had no shortage of hurdles in trying to overcome the effects of COVID-19. It’s the first Olympic Games ever to be postponed and rescheduled (rather than cancelled) since the international event began in 1896. Resistance to the Olympics in Japan is still significant, with 70-80% opposed in recent polls. It has already been determined that fans from abroad are barred, and organizers have decided to wait until as late as June to decide whether any fans at all will be welcome at Olympic venues. For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below: The rollout of the second edition of the “Playbooks” — an IOC guidebook explaining how the games can be pulled off — comes as Tokyo, Osaka and several other areas have been placed under a third state of emergency as coronavirus cases surge.
