Flame for 2020 Tokyo Olympics lit in ancient Olympia amid virus lockdown

The Olympic flame for the 2020 Tokyo Games was lit in ancient Olympia on Thursday amid an unprecedented health lockdown as Greece registered its first death from coronavirus.

With spectators banned, an actress dressed as an ancient Greek high priestess lit the flame using the rays of the sun reflected off a concave mirror, launching a week-long torch relay in Greece before the flame is handed to Tokyo organisers on March 19.

“Today marks the beginning of the journey of the Olympic flame to Japan,” said International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach.

“When the flame returns to Tokyo after 56 years, hope will light the way across the entire country,” he said.

With the coronavirus causing a tsunami effect in world sport, doubts are increasingly being raised over whether the Olympics can be held as scheduled from July 24 to Aug. 9.

Organisers have insisted the Games will go ahead as planned and the IOC has said there has not yet been any talk of cancellation or postponement.

The IOC has said it will coordinate closely with the World Health Organization, which has now officially classified the outbreak as a pandemic.

Cancelling the 2020 Olympics is “unthinkable” although the classification of the coronavirus as a pandemic will likely have some impact on the Games, the Tokyo city governor said on Thursday.

“It can’t be said that the announcement of a pandemic would have no impact... But I think cancellation is unthinkable,” Yuriko Koike told reporters.

Organisers have insisted the Games will go ahead as planned and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), with whom the final decision rests, has said there has not yet been any talk of cancellation or postponement.

Koike vowed to work with the IOC and Tokyo 2020 organisers on what she described as a “global issue”, promising to devote her “utmost efforts” to holding the Games.

But coronavirus has already taken a huge toll on sport across the globe with a long list of competitions affected.

The torch is due to arrive in Japan on March 20 but the arrival ceremony has also been downscaled, with some 200 children originally scheduled to attend now expected to miss it.

Olympic qualifying tournaments in several different sports have also been cancelled, postponed or moved to different countries.

Mori made the comments after a member of the organisers’ executive board sounded the alarm, warning postponing the Games for two years might be the best option under the circumstances.

But Mori dismissed that option, as did Japanese Olympic minister Seiko Hashimoto, who told a parliament committee that postponing or cancelling the Games was “inconceivable”.

Executive board member Haruyuki Takahashi had told Japan’s Asahi Shimbun daily it would be ideal to hold the Olympics as planned but “there has to be an alternative plan”.

“The coronavirus has become a global problem. We can’t just hold it (the Olympics) because Japan is OK,” he told the daily on Wednesday.

Takahashi said the summer two years from now “offers the best possibility” for a postponement, given the international sporting calendar, adding that “preparation must start now” if a delay is on the cards.

He insisted that it would be “impossible” to cancel the Games altogether, and said he was speaking out as “a warning bell” for the organising committee, adding that he would raise the issue at a board meeting later this month.

Agencies