Olympic flag arrives in the host city of next Summer Games
Olympic Games is held every after four years. This year, it was held at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil despite the concerns on Zika virus and dirty water system.
Four years from now, 2020, it will be hosted by Tokyo, Japan, and they are now getting ready for the said big event in the world.
As Tokyo looks forward to hosting the next Olympic Summer Games in 2020, the Olympic flag arrived in Japan on Wednesday with Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike and the Japanese Olympic delegation returning from Brazil.
Koike held the flag aloft as she got off an All Nippon Airways plane and walked down a stairway to the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.
Koike received the flag at Sunday’s closing ceremonies of the Rio Games from Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.
Koike is a newly elected governor of Tokyo who has pledged to examine the spiraling costs to avoid saddling taxpayers with debt and building white elephants.
The flag, bearing the symbol of the five interlocking rings, arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on charter flights with the delegation, which bagged a record 41 medals at the Aug. 5-21 games in Rio de Janeiro.
From the other aircraft, delegation captain Saori Yoshida, the silver medalist in the women’s 53-kg freestyle wrestling competition in Rio, disembarked along with Japan’s flag bearer and decathlete Keisuke Ushiro holding the Japanese Olympic Committee flag.
“I am pleased to bring back this flag to Tokyo after more than 50 years,” Koike said at a welcome ceremony at the airport, referring to the 1964 Summer Games hosted by Tokyo. “With this flag as the symbol, we will stand at the forefront to foster momentum (toward 2020).”
Yoshida said she expects the “excitement of Rio to come back during the Tokyo Olympics.”
Plans are underway for a nationwide flag exhibit tour to generate enthusiasm for the 2020 Olympics.
According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the flag will be kept at its headquarters until the time Paralympic flag arrives from Rio de Janeiro in September.
Construction of the main stadium is slated to start toward the end of this year. Japan’s capital also hosted the Olympics in 1964.