Construction of the new National Stadium, which will serve as the main venue for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, is currently underway. A scale model and mock-ups of various parts of the stadium have been unveiled to the media: these showcase many of its charming features, such as eaves that allow breezes to pass through and seats designed around the concept of sunlight filtering through a forest. This new stadium will provide athletes with a tremendous stage on which to compete in 2020!
You can see the photos of the scale model and mock-ups here.
Mock-ups of the new Olympic stadium have been unveiled – it’s going to provide a great stage for the athletes to compete on at #Tokyo2020! pic.twitter.com/2LMwsqhuEj
In 2020, Tokyo will host the XXXII Olympic Summer Games. The city also hosted the 1964 Olympics. Over the next three years we’ll explore this fascinating and hectic metropolis in a serie of blog posts. Topics include: urban sprawl, architecture and infrastucture.
The Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee and the Tokyo metropolitan government announced the results of a water quality survey conducted at Odaiba Marine Park. In 2020, this venue will host the marathon swimming and triathlon events.
Tokyo 2020 To Stage Celebration of ‘1,000 Days To Go’ Milestone
26 September 2017
The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo 2020) has announced it will hold a “1,000 Days To Go” countdown event in the main street of Tokyo’s famous Nihonbashi district on Saturday 28 October. The street will be decorated with banners displaying newly designed graphics and turned into a giant sports field for the day – if you’re going to be in Tokyo then, please come along and join us!
After watching demonstrations by athletes, you will have the opportunity to learn about and practice some of the sports that will make their first appearance in the Olympic Games in 2020. The Japanese Olympic Committee will also organise an Olympic Concert – a classical concert performed against a backdrop of Olympic images projected onto multiple screens.
On Wednesday 29 November, exactly 1,000 days before the opening of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, the Tokyo Sky Tree—the world’s tallest tower at 634 metres—will be lit up with the three colours of the “Agitos” Paralympic symbol.
Between these two dates, Tokyo 2020 partners and stakeholders will organise several cultural, sporting and educational events throughout Japan, aiming to maintain momentum and encourage the engagement of the public during a whole month of celebration. Watch our website for further details!
In advance of these countdown events, Tokyo 2020 has unveiled new graphics that are going to feature on posters and banners across Tokyo in the run-up to and during the entire “1,000 Days To Go” celebration period. The patterns of squares forming the underlying Tokyo 2020 emblems have been rearranged in the new graphics to resemble fireworks lighting up the sky. Japan is famous for its firework displays, and these dynamic new designs will help raise public awareness of the Games and create a sense of anticipation as the countdown towards them continues.
Seven new graphic designs have been created – two for Olympic-related promotion, two for Paralympic-related promotion and three designed for use by either. Tokyo 2020, our corporate partners and approved event organisers will use these on posters, banners and merchandise. You can see the new designs below.
Olympic Games
Blue flash
Glorious red
Shiny yellow
Dazzling skyblue
Brilliant pink
The first new venue for Tokyo 2020 is completed. The Musashino Forest Sport Plaza will host the badminton and modern pentathlon (fencing) competitions.
Tokyo 2020 Paralympic medal event programme announced 04.09.2017
Games to feature 4,400 athletes who will compete across 537 medal events in 22 sports
The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games will feature 4,400 athletes who will compete in 537 medal events the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has announced. The final medal event programme and athlete quotas were approved by the IPC Governing Board on Monday (4 September) following the conclusion of a 10-month-long consultation exercise with international federations. Key highlights include:
At least 1,756 slots for female athletes, the most ever, which represents a 17 per cent increase in the number of women that took part in London 2012. This number is likely to increase further due to the allocation of 294 gender free slots.
Badminton and taekwondo, the two sports that will make their Paralympic debut in Tokyo, have been awarded with 14 and 6 medal events respectively
Canoe, which made its Paralympic debut at Rio 2016 with six medal events, will have nine medal events due to the inclusion of three va’a class events
As part of the IPC’s drive to increase opportunities for athletes with high support needs, the sport of boccia has been allocated 116 athlete slots, 8 more than Rio 2016
Compared to Rio 2016 14 sports will feature the same number of athletes. The sports of boccia, canoe, judo, shooting, table tennis, triathlon and wheelchair fencing all have additional slots
Four sports – canoe, shooting, table tennis and wheelchair fencing – have more medal events than Rio 2016 while athletics and swimming have less events.
The final list of events for athletics, swimming and triathlon will be published at later dates
The Tokyo 2020 Mascot Design Competition was launched earlier this week. You can read the press release by Tokyo2020 below. Or visit this page for more information.
Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Mascot Design Competition Now Open to Public! 1 August 2017
The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo 2020) today launched a competition inviting all residents of Japan to submit their own design proposals for the Olympic and Paralympic mascots. If you’re living in Japan, from today until Monday 14 August you can design your own set of mascots and submit these via the Tokyo 2020 website. So it’s time to let those creative juices flow and get designing – yours could be the winner!
To mark the competition’s kick-off, Tokyo 2020 held a ceremony at Kuramae Elementary School in Asakusabashi in Tokyo today that was attended by over 200 excited schoolchildren. At the event, four-time Olympian Ai Sugiyama and three-time Paralympian Aki Taguchi mingled with the children and shared their stories and experiences of being athletes and competing at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
In May this year, Tokyo 2020 announced a cool new method they will use to select the winner of the design competition. A Tokyo 2020 mascot review panel will select a shortlist from the submitted design sets by the beginning of December, and schoolchildren at every elementary school across the country, including international schools, will be able to cast their vote and select their preferred set of designs. Tokyo 2020 will select the design set which attracts the largest number of classroom votes and announce the winner in March 2018. It will be a great way to directly involve young people in the Games’ preparations!
At today’s event, children counted down to noon, and as chairperson of the Mascot Selection Panel Ryohei Miyata beat a ceremonial gong, they cheered the announcement that the design entry website was now open. Two cheerleading squads performed in front of the schoolchildren and guests to celebrate the occasion.
Miyata commented, “Japanese mascots are loved by many people around the world. You and your classmates will select the best mascots for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic games. We are going to ask all elementary school children in Japan to play this important role. We hope many people will enter this competition starting today”
A “creative brief” with a comprehensive set of design guidelines and criteria is available for applicants for download here:
Event Marking “3 Years to Go to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020” Wows Tokyo Crowds
24 July 2017
The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo 2020) today co-hosted a “Tokyo 2020 Flag Tour Festival / 3 Years to Go to the Tokyo 2020 Games” event, to mark that it is exactly three years until the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. The event was co-hosted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Japanese Olympic & Paralympic Committee, and around 5,000 spectators joined Japanese Olympians and Paralympians and other guests at Tokyo’s Citizens’ Plaza in Shinjuku to celebrate the milestone.
This event was also the prelude to the Nationwide Tokyo 2020 Flag Tour which aims to bring some of the excitement of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to every corner of the country. Since the Olympic and Paralympic flags arrived in Tokyo from Rio, they have been paraded through all cities, towns, wards and villages in the Tokyo Metropolitan area, prefectures affected by the 2011 East Japan earthquake and Kumamoto prefecture, which was hit by a major quake in 2016. The Flag Tour built on the momentum of support for the Games generated in Japan during the Olympic Games Rio 2016.
Today’s event featured a newly-created projection mapping show, whereby a spectacular video light show highlighting the attractions of Tokyo and the power of sport was projected on to the exterior of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly building, accompanied by music. Spectators, Olympians and Paralympians later battled each other in a fun computer game that was projected onto the huge screen. The enthusiasm of the fans and the dynamic 3D art show provided a glimpse of what people can expect from Tokyo 2020.
Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori commented, “Today marks exactly three years until the start of the Tokyo 2020 Games. It’s also been three and a half years since the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee was established. The Organising Committee started with just 44 staff members; now, the number has grown to over 1,200.
“Firstly, I’d like to express my gratitude towards all of our colleagues at the Organising Committee, as well as to the many other people at the various organisations who have devoted themselves to the preparations for the Games.
“Although there have been some bumps along the way, many of the challenges have been overcome.Overall preparation is well underway, and we have also successfully reached an agreement with related parties on general costs and role sharing.
“As there are only three years until Tokyo 2020, we have commenced the preparation of more intangible aspects of the Games – the mascots, the torch relay and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. We have committees set up for each of those projects, with experts who represent Japan in those fields. We hope to show the best of Tokyo and Japan through the innovative initiatives that we are implementing in the lead up to what we believe will be the most exciting Games ever.
“This summer, we are producing a Tokyo 2020 happi, or traditional Japanese jacket, a special yukata, or casual kimono, and we are releasing “Tokyo Gorin Ondo 2020”, a dance song in traditional Japanese style celebrating the Games. We have produced these in the hope that many people all over the country will wear the Tokyo 2020 summer festival costumes and dance to the song.
“The common theme of these engagement initiatives this summer is “Happy & Peace”. Through this, we are expressing the wish that many people, old and young, men and women, will dance and feel happy when the Tokyo Gorin Ondo 2020 song is played. A video will soon be available on our website, through which people can learn the song and the dance routine. We hope that people around the world can thus have a glimpse of Japanese culture.
“Today, as we enter the next stage of preparations, we are thrilled at the prospect of hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and we remain committed to working hard so that in three years time we will be able to welcome our guests from around the world and deliver a most exciting summer festival.”
