Japan, which will host the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, will mint two kinds of 1,000-yen ($10) coins to commemorate the handover of the hosting of the Games from Rio de Janeiro to Tokyo, the government said Wednesday.
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That was Japan’s way of saying “Welcome to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan”.
In Sunday’s closing ceremony, the Olympic flag was formally passed to Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, the first woman to lead the city.
NBC uploaded a small clip showing Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzō Abe, turning into a 3D version of Mario to travel from Tokyo to Brazil using a green warp tunnel, and popping out the other side dressed as the iconic Brooklyn plumber.
As for Nintendo, the company probably couldn’t be more thrilled with how that segment was received.
The meeting was organised by nonprofit Genki Net for Creating a Sustainable Society, which put forward figures to show the country’s e-waste contains enough precious metals to create all the medals for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
“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.
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.
Tokyo’s metropolitan conurbation is the world’s largest with more than 35 million people, but streets are safe, trains run on time and the air is clean.
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The games in Brazil – which is embroiled in a political crisis over the impeachment of suspended president Dilma Rousseff – suffered a series of setbacks.
