Photo/Illutration Tadahiro Nomura, right, and Saori Yoshida, both Olympic gold medalists, light the Olympic torch at the Air Self-Defense Force Matsushima Base in Higashi-Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 20, 2020. (Takuya Isayama)

Even with a possible postponement looming over the Tokyo Olympics, organizers plan to start the torch relay on March 26 as scheduled.

The Tokyo Olympic organizing committee started discussions on the torch relay on March 23 as the International Olympic Committee weighs postponing the Games due to the new coronavirus pandemic with a final decision due out within four weeks.

A PR official of the organizing committee said on March 23 that the torch relay will start “as scheduled.”

An organizing committee official said, “As long as there is a possibility that the Olympics will be held as scheduled, we should continue the torch relay.”

However, a senior official of the organizing committee has been worried about the ramifications from a postponement of the Games.

“Even if the torch relay starts, it can be stopped anytime, anywhere," the official said. "When that happens, how will we keep the Olympic flame? That’s what we have to think about.”

The Olympic flame arrived in Japan from Greece on March 20. It has been on a public tour as the “Flame of Revival” in the three prefectures most affected by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami--Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima.

The departure ceremony for the torch relay is scheduled to be held in J-Village in Fukushima Prefecture on March 26.

The organizing committee has already said that it will downsize the ceremony and may ask that spectators not come to watch the torch being carried through the streets.

Within four weeks, the torch relay will pass through the following prefectures: Fukushima, Tochigi, Gunma, Nagano, Gifu, Aichi, Mie, Wakayama, Nara, Osaka, Tokushima, Kagawa, Kochi, Ehime and Oita.

An IOC decision is expected when torchbearers run in Kochi Prefecture on April 20 and 21, in Ehime Prefecture on April 22 and 23 or in Oita Prefecture on April 24 and 25.