The Olympic torch relay will pass through a total of 857 municipalities nationwide over a 121-day span, according to the official route released Saturday by the 2020 Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The relay will start on March 26, 2020, from the J-Village national soccer training center in Fukushima Prefecture, which was devastated by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent tsunami, in a gesture marking the reconstruction of the area from the disaster.
The relay will be in Tokyo from July 10 and finish at the Tokyo metropolitan government office building in Shinjuku Ward on July 24, after which the Olympic flame will be lit in the cauldron of the Olympic stadium at the opening ceremony starting at 8 p.m. that night. The route through the nation includes scenic spots and UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Among the prefectures, Tokyo, as Olympic host, has been allocated the most number of days for the relay at 15, followed by three days each for three prefectures affected by the disaster -- Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate -- and the four prefectures near Tokyo in which Olympic venues are located -- Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama and Shizuoka. The remaining prefectures were allocated two days each.
Each day, the relay will be run between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. in principle, and the flame will be transported to the next-day starting point by car or other means.
The organizing committee asked each municipality to select the local route based on the following criteria:
-- Many people will be able to watch the relay.
-- The passage of the torch will be a source of inspiration.
-- It will pass through places that can highlight local characteristics to both Japan and abroad.
The organizing committee pointed out that 98 percent of the population lives in areas within one hour via public transportation to municipalities in which the torch relay will pass. For that reason, it praised the official route, saying, "a route was devised that many people will be able to watch along the way."
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