Flame-Lighting Events Held for Tokyo Paralympics

Tokyo, Aug. 12 (Jiji Press)--Flame-lighting festivals for the Tokyo Paralympic torch relay took place across Japan on Thursday in the run-up to the Aug. 24 opening of the sporting event. Meanwhile, torch relay events slated to be held from Tuesday on public roads in the four prefectures where Paralympic Game venues are located--Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo and Shizuoka--have been canceled except in Shizuoka due to the novel coronavirus crisis. On Thursday, which marked the full start of Paralympic flame-related events, fires were collected in unique ways in various festival venues, but on a reduced scale to prevent the spread of infection. Many events took place without spectators, while some festivals were conducted in a shorter time than originally planned. In Rikuzentakata in the northeastern prefecture of Iwate, hit hard by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, a flame was taken from a permanent gas lamp monument called the "3.11 Light of Hope." A fire was also collected from the "flame of peace" in the Peace Memorial Park in Itoman, Okinawa Prefecture, southernmost Japan, which commemorates the grueling Battle of Okinawa in the late stages of World War II. Flames from each lighting festival will be brought together in a ceremony on Aug. 20 in Tokyo and merged with a flame collected in Stoke Mandeville in Britain, the spiritual birthplace of the Paralympic movement, to create the Paralympic Flame. The combined flame was slated to be relayed on public roads in Tokyo until the opening ceremony. But the relay was canceled and will be replaced by an ignition ceremony. END