Photo/Illutration Tokyo Olympic marathon course in Sapporo will start and finish in the city's Odori Park. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Olympics organizers approved the new route for the Tokyo 2020 marathon on Thursday, after the race was moved to the northern city of Sapporo earlier this year due to heat concerns.

Both the men's and women's courses will start and finish in the city's Odori Park. The course for both races will consist of three loops. One loop will be about the length of a half-marathon and will be run first. The other loop will be about 10 kilometers and will be covered twice.

The start of the race will be set against the backdrop of Sapporo TV Tower, one of the city's landmarks, and the route will twice cross the Toyohira River that runs through the city.

The women's race will be run on Aug. 8 and the men's marathon on the following day--the final day of the Olympics. Both marathons will start at 7 a.m. local time.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) unilaterally moved the marathons and race walks out of Tokyo because of the summer heat, which angered Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. She fought the move, losing a chance for Tokyo to show off its colorful streets lined with shrines and temples, skyscrapers, and packed restaurants and bars.

Temperatures in the Japanese capital in July and August, when the Olympics will be held, regularly exceed 30 degrees Celsius with high humidity adding to the discomfort.

Sapporo is located about 800 kilometers north of Tokyo.

On Thursday, the IOC, World Athletics and Tokyo 2020 organizers agreed on the new route in Sapporo.

The Paralympic marathons will remain in Tokyo and should avoid the heat since the Paralympics begin two weeks after the Olympics end and extend into the cooler month of September.