Organizers of the next Olympic Games, which will be held in Tokyo, will tap the country’s “urban mine”, which is made up of millions of discarded smartphones and other consumer devices, to make gold, silver and bronze medals, Nikkei Asian Review reports.
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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 August 5-21 games in Rio de Janeiro.
In a brief short that closed out the ceremony, Mario searches for the quickest path from Tokyo to Rio de Janeiro, and of course, for Mario, that’s through a green pipe straight through the center of the Earth.
The Tokyo Olympics are four years away, but host nation Japan is already upping its environmental game.
Abe, who emerged from the Super Mario outfit in his usual get-up of a smartly tailored suit and tie, was getting mostly favorable commentary on his impersonation of the game character.
Yoshida said she expects the “excitement of Rio to come back during the Tokyo Olympics“. In a brief animated video clip (embedded below) that celebrated Japan’s cartoon heroes as much as it did its athletes, Abe was seen morphing into Nintendo’s portly mascot, Super Mario.
“I wasn’t sure how the audience would react”, he added.
The Games were awarded to Tokyo in 2013, with expectations that they would be a model of efficiency with the city touting itself as “peaceful, reliable, safe, and stable”.
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As for Nintendo, the company probably couldn’t be more thrilled with how that segment was received. And with strict gun control and a public honesty visitors find disarming, few people ever experience serious crime.
