Little-known retired swimmer Naoko Imoto will be a last-minute stand-in to receive the Olympic flame during a scaled back handover in Athens on Thursday, Tokyo 2020 organisers said. The Tokyo 2020 team had contacted Imoto, who lives in Greece, only hours before making the announcement on Wednesday evening in the Japanese capital.
Bhupinder Singh Bajwa will be the chairman of the panel with hockey Olympian M M Somaya and former international shuttler Manjusha Kanwar being the other two members.
Wrestler Bajrang Punia will be the flag bearer at closing ceremony at Tokyo Games on August 8.
The International Olympic Committee expects to bear costs of up to $800 million for its part in the organisation of the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics, now due to be staged next year, IOC president Thomas Bach said on Thursday. In March, the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government decided to delay the Games, which were due to start this July, for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed 300,000 people worldwide.
Tokyo Olympics organisers are preparing to host the Games next year even if the global coronavirus pandemic hasn't eased substantially, organising committee chief executive Toshiro Muto said on Tuesday. Muto said he hopes Tokyo 2020 could be the benchmark in a post-pandemic world.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) warned Tokyo 2020 organisers on Friday that more accessible hotels and transport options must be found ahead of the showpiece event.
Athletes will need to provide a negative COVID-19 test taken less than 72 hours before arriving in Japan for the Olympics and will be tested "every 96-120 hours" during the Games, according to a report published by organisers.
Japan government says no truth to report of possible Olympics cancellation.
Olympics organisers must replan the Games without running up huge additional costs. IOC President Thomas Bach said his organisation faces several hundred million dollars in supplementary costs.
The Mainichi newspaper earlier reported that the government was planning to ban overseas spectators due to worries they would spread the coronavirus, citing multiple unnamed sources.
Bach's two-day visit to Tokyo is likely to bolster Japan's efforts to stage the Olympics, but will do little to assuage the concerns of a public deeply worried about the spread of the virus.
Organisers said they would explore partnering in areas including the exchange of personnel and information and language services, and actively promote each other's Games and work closely on the flag hand-over ceremonies.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) should review plans to go ahead with the Tokyo Olympics during the coronavirus pandemic and ensure dialogue with athletes, the Sport and Rights Alliance (SRA) and the World Players Association (WPA) said on Saturday.
Qualifying boxing matches for Asia and Oceania for the 2020 Olympic Games have been cancelled due to fears over the new flu-like coronavirus
Construction delays at two key Olympic venues could force Tokyo Games organisers into a reshuffle of test event schedules, the organising committee said.
The Tokyo Olympics 2020 will cost the host organising committee six times more than their original estimate, and come in at around 1.8 trillion yen ($14.85 billion), public broadcaster NHK said on its website on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The schedule announcement comes amid fears that the coronavirus outbreak, labelled a pandemic by the WHO on Wednesday, could have a major impact on the Games.
The sports ministry cleared the final contingent that also features 140 support staff and officials, of which 72 "have been approved at cost to the Government" to meet the "requirements" of the travelling sportspersons.
Alcohol sales have been restricted in and around Tokyo after health officials warned drinking would encourage close contact, loud speaking and mingling in bars that could help spread the virus.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics flame handover ceremony in Athens this week will be a scaled-down event with only a few Tokyo Games officials and torch bearers inside the stadium to protect everyone from the coronavirus, the Hellenic Olympic Committee said on Monday. The handover ceremony usually attracts thousand of spectators, officials and ceremony participants in the central Athens' Panathenaic Stadium, site of the first modern Olympics in 1896.
The poll released on Tuesday found a global average of 46 per cent interest in the Games, but excitement varied across markets
Sponsors also worry that organisers have not told them what contingency plans there are in case the pandemic derails the Games again this year.
The Indian contingent was largely satisfied with the food and facilities provided at the Olympic Games Village, but a request has gone out to the Indian Embassy for 100 plus electric kettles to meet the athletes' requirement of warm water.
Asked about the campaign against the Games, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said she would work towards a "safe and secure" Olympics.
IOA also announced that Sindhu, India's only woman athlete to win back-to-back Olympic medals, will be the flag bearer of the Indian contingent during the opening ceremony on July 26, alongside ace table tennis player Achanta Sharath Kamal.
The sweltering heat killed 57 people across Japan in the week from July 29 to Aug. 4, the Disaster Management Agency said on Tuesday.
As COVID-19 cases rise in Tokyo, however, public concern has grown that hosting an event with tens of thousands of overseas athletes, officials and journalists could accelerate infection rates in Japan's capital and introduce variants that are more infectious or deadlier.
The four-month event has been hit by several high-profile runner cancellations as celebrities have pulled out, citing late notice and worries about drawing crowds during the pandemic.
Japan is eager to quell fears the Games might be called off, postponed or moved to a different location due to the virus. And despite its optimism over the Olympics, Japan has cancelled numerous sporting events.
After dropping Chinese sportswear company Li Ning as India's Olympic kit sponsor, Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday said the country's athletes will not wear branded apparel in the upcoming Tokyo Games even as the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) claimed that the search is on for a new partner.
The Mobile Mosque, a fully-equipped 48-square-metre prayer room that opens up on the back of a parked truck, can be widened in seconds and the vehicle also includes Arabic signage and outdoor water taps for pre-worship cleaning. The Yasu Project, the organisation behind the enterprise, plan on pitching up outside venues during the Tokyo Olympics, which run from July 24 to August 9.
Indian athletes, including the boxers and shooters, hit the ground running as they started their pre-Olympic training, hoping to live up to massive expectations in the pandemic-hit Games in Tokyo.
The postponed Olympic Games will now begin on July 23 next year and run until August 8, the head of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee said on Monday, as the coronavirus pandemic made it impossible to plan and prepare for them properly this year. The Games were postponed last week - the first such delay in the 124-year history of the modern Olympics. The move was a huge blow for Japan, which invested $13 billion in the run-up to the event and raised $3 billion from domestic sponsors.
Normally a star-studded display teeming with celebrities, the Tokyo Olympics ceremony was low-key, with fewer than 1,000 people in attendance, strict social distancing rules and signs calling on spectators to "be quiet around the venue."
India is hoping to win more than 25 medals from its largest-ever contingent of 84 athletes at the upcoming Paris Paralympic Games beginning on August 28
Tokyo 2020 organisers left the Olympic flame in the hands of Fukushima Prefecture on Wednesday where it will be on display in a lantern for the next month after the Games were postponed for a year due to the coronavirus outbreak. The handover took place at a subdued ceremony at the J-Village National Training Centre in Fukushima, which was originally set to be the starting point of the torch relay.
The International Boxing Association (IBA) urged its national federations on Monday to join legal action in Switzerland against what it called the "abusive behaviour" of Olympic organisers.
Nothing is certain as Tokyo's postponed Olympics hit the 100-days-to-go mark on Wednesday
Scientists and medical experts are concerned about how things might look next summer, a year after the Tokyo Games were postponed.
'This also weighed on us, it weighed on me. But in order to arrive at this day today we had to give confidence, had to show a way out of this crisis'.
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