With two years to go before the opening of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, the recently announced itinerary of the sports events and the torch relay — which are both scheduled to start in Fukushima Prefecture — sends a symbolic message about the organizers' hope to cast the games as an event to showcase the efforts to recover from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the nuclear disaster. Preparations for hosting the games are steadily proceeding, including the construction of the new National Stadium, which was significantly delayed after the initial plan was scrapped due to cost overruns. Meanwhile, the heat wave that is scorching the nation has rekindled concerns over holding the games during Tokyo's hot and humid summer season.
Last week, the International Olympic Committee approved the plan for the rough itinerary of the record 339 events in 33 sports that will be held at the 2020 Games, which will take place from July 24 to Aug. 9. A softball game that pits Japan's national team against a yet unnamed opponent will be held July 22 — ahead of the opening ceremony — at a stadium in Fukushima, where the opening game of the baseball tournament will also take place July 29. Earlier this month it was also revealed that a 121-day torch relay to carry the flame that will be used to light the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony will start on March 26 that year in Fukushima. The torch will then be carried southward and reach Okinawa Prefecture in May, then be carried northward and reach Hokkaido in June before finally arriving at its final destination in Tokyo.
Promoting the recovery from the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that ravaged broad areas of the Pacific coast in Tohoku, as well as the subsequent disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, was a core concept in Japan's bid for the 2020 Summer Games, which it won in 2013. The decision to kick off both the torch relay and sports events in Fukushima — where, seven years after the disaster, some 45,000 people remain displaced from their homes — will carry a special meaning for the games.