When you are in the desert you look for a mirage. When you are lost at sea you look for the signal of a boat or a search plane.
The equivalent in global sport is a concrete sign that things may one day return to normal and the setting of a date for the start of the Olympic Torch as a sporting milestone by the athletes and support teams that are on tenterhooks for 2021.
It will start on March 25th in Fukushima and visit each of Japan’s 47 regions or prefectures before arriving in Tokyo on July 23rd for the revised opening date for the Tokyo 2020 Games.
The Paralympic Torch Relay will be held over 12 days from August 12th to 24th.
The flame was already lit in Olympia, as is tradition and had arrived in Fukushima prior to the postponement of the Games this year. It was then moved to Tokyo where it continues to burn at the Japanese Olympic Museum.
The restaged Relay will be held under the banner of “Hope Lights Our Way.”
Coca Cola and Toyota are the two Olympic partners who are most closely associated with the Torch Relay.
The Olympic Flame came to Dublin in advance of London 2012 where it was carried around Northern Ireland as part of the relay and dipped south of the border as a gesture towards the peace process.
