The Olympic Torch Relay is not scheduled to begin its domestic passage from Fukushima until March 25 next year but the Olympic Flame is set to begin a separate journey across Japan in a safety lantern this weekend.

In an unprecedented move, the Olympic flame is to  visit 14 Japanese prefectures before the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Torch Relay begins.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko was sworn in for another term in a low key ceremony last week as reports said that there were widespread arrests in the capital Minsk.

Tokyo’s Olympic Flame is set to go on display next week at the Olympic Museum. Organisers hope it will raise morale after the unprecedented postponement of the Games until 2021 in the same way that the Torch Relay 20 years ago transformed the attitude towards the Games in Sydney.

Organisers of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games are considering a streamlined version of the Torch Relay to cut costs.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Flame has been put on public display in Fukushima, where it will remain until the end of April before it is moved to the Japanese capital.

Tokyo 2020 President Yoshirō Mori has said that a decision on whether to continue the Olympic Torch Relay will be made in the coming days.

Huge crowds have turned out to see the Olympic Flame when it was put on display at Sendai railway station in the Japanese prefecture of Miyagi in spite of advice not to congregate.

A Tokyo 2020 delegation will not fly to Athens to collect the Olympic Flame tomorrow as was originally planned.

Hellenic Post’s issue of a first day cover to mark the lighting of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Flame seems set to become even more of a collectors item after the decision to cancel the remainder of the Greek section of the Relay as a precautionary measure against the spread of coronavirus.

The Tokyo 2020 Torch has begun its journey from Ancient Olympia to the Japanese capital after the traditional lighting ceremony in the place where the Olympic Games of antiquity were held.

Precautions against the coronavirus have prompted a reduction in the the usual celebrations, but as things stand, organisers insist that Rio 2016 shooting champion Anna Korakaki will receive the first Olympic Torch to start the Relay to Tokyo next Thursday.

Tokyo 2020 organisers have revealed that the special aircraft which will carry the Olympic flame to Japan is expected to fly from Tokyo International Airport to Athens on the morning of March 18.

Limiting the number of spectators and monitoring the health of runners are among the measures set to be put in place by Tokyo 2020 for the upcoming Olympic Torch Relay because of widening concerns over the coronavirus outbreak.

The Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) has scaled down events around the lighting of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Flame next week, but insists the ceremony in Ancient Olympia will go ahead "with a sense of responsibility for the protection of public health."