Tennis star Naomi Osaka, who is competing for Japan in the Games, lit the cauldron at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The relay to the cauldron, the Olympic torch’s final destination, has been largely spectator-free in isolated events due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The cauldron stays lit during the entire Games.
More on Osaka: Born in Osaka, Japan, to a Japanese mother and Haitian-American father, the four-time Grand Slam tennis champion moved to the United States at age 3.
Tennis journalist Akatsuki Uchida has called her “an icon of a new generation in Japan, which is more diverse.”
In May, Osaka withdrew from the French Open, citing her mental health. She revealed she had “suffered long bouts of depression” since winning her first Grand Slam title in 2018.
Osaka was fined $15,000 for not participating in any news conferences there.
In an essay for TIME magazine, she said the press conference format between journalists and athletes is “out of date.”
“I feel uncomfortable being the spokesperson or face of athlete mental health as it’s still so new to me and I don’t have all the answers. I do hope that people can relate and understand it’s OK to not be OK, and it’s OK to talk about it,” she wrote.
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