FUKUSHIMA, Japan — When Bruna Noguchi signed up
to be a torchbearer for the Tokyo Olympics a year and a half ago — before the
coronavirus pandemic, before the resignations of two top officials over sexist
remarks — she never dreamed it could be a controversial decision.
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But as the relay kicked off on Thursday morning
in Fukushima prefecture, the ceremony and those participating in it were at the
center of a national debate, with many questioning whether the games should go
on in spite of the virus, the ballooning costs and other growing challenges.
While more than three dozen people, including
about 20 celebrities, have withdrawn from the relay, Noguchi, 22, has decided
to participate. She is one of 10,000 people who will carry the torch over the
next four months, from Fukushima to Okinawa in the far south to Hokkaido in the
north and on to the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo.
“I can understand the feelings of the people
who have decided to withdraw from the relay,” Noguchi, who is from Gunma
prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, said in a recent interview. “But I’m not
worried.”
The Japanese authorities had envisioned the
start of the torch relay as a triumphant moment, and their choice of Fukushima
as the launching point was heavily symbolic. Japan is calling these games the
“Recovery Olympics,” highlighting the country’s recovery from the 2011 earthquake,
tsunami and nuclear disaster that ravaged Fukushima and other parts of
northeastern Japan, as well as the world’s recovery from the coronavirus
pandemic.
Seiko Hashimoto, president of the Tokyo
organizing committee, said that it was “very meaningful” that the relay would
start in Fukushima and that she wished for “the entire world to take a look at
the reconstruction done in East Japan.”
“Everyone has to feel safe and secure — that is
the top priority,” Hashimoto said during a news conference last week.
But the celebration Thursday was subdued, and
the relay was being carried out under a number of restrictions. Traditional
Japanese drummers and a hula dance group opened the ceremony, performing before
a group of around 150 attendees, who sat at socially distanced intervals and
applauded politely.
The Olympic flame was lit in Greece last March
and has been kept burning in Japan during the last year of pandemic. As a few
celebrities took to the stage to deliver brief speeches before the torch’s
departure, one of them made a nod to the controversy over the relay, noting
that there had been “many opinions” about whether to participate.
Members of Nadeshiko Japan, the country’s World
Cup-winning women’s soccer team, carried the torch for the first few hundred
yards of the relay as a small group of reporters and dignitaries looked on.
After the first wave of the pandemic forced a
yearlong delay of the Olympics, the Japanese government argues that it is now
ready to hold the games.
Many in Japan, however, remain worried that the
virus has yet to run its course, and that the games and surrounding events risk
worsening the country’s comparatively mild experience of the pandemic. Reported
coronavirus deaths remain under 9,000, but the country is still recording over
1,000 cases each day, and health experts warn that a fourth wave is in sight.
The authorities ended a nearly three-month
state of emergency in the Tokyo region Sunday. In a poll by the Asahi
newspaper, over 50 percent of respondents said that it had been lifted too
early. Some Twitter users accused Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who has faced
a backlash for his insistence on holding the games despite widespread public
opposition.
Case numbers have surged in recent weeks in
Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures in the Tohoku region of Japan, which also
includes Fukushima prefecture, and a local state of emergency was declared last
week.
Tatsuya Maruyama, the governor of Shimane
prefecture, in western Japan, said early last month that it was “difficult to
cooperate” with the torch relay and the Tokyo Games because of the coronavirus
situation.
He is not the only one wary about the events.
In addition to the celebrity withdrawals, Suga himself will not attend the
relay, saying that he had come to the decision “after comprehensively
considering parliamentary schedules.”
On Thursday morning, Suga said from Tokyo that
“this is a valuable opportunity to make the public realize that the Olympics
and Paralympic Games are fast approaching.”
On Thursday morning, when the torch left
J-Village — a reconstructed soccer stadium that served as a base for nuclear
recovery operations during the Fukushima disaster — it was under circumstances
that the government had not planned for last year.
Hoping to curb the virus, the authorities have
placed many restrictions on the torch relay. The grand ceremony Thursday and
the first section of the relay were closed to the public. Routes will not be
announced until 30 minutes before the start time, and spectators can attend the
relay only in their home prefectures.
No cheering or shouting is allowed, and fans
must offer “support with applause or using distributed goods.” The relay will
be livestreamed by NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster.
Despite the precautions, some people in
Fukushima said they were still worried. Shuhei Ohno, 34, a chef in Koriyama,
said he feared that the torch relay may “raise the infection risk” nationwide.
“The vaccine hasn’t spread widely enough in
Japan yet, so how can there already be plans to host the Olympics?” he said.
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