Applicants across Japan have begun receiving notification that they were selected to run in the Japan leg of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic torch relay that will kick off on March 26 at the J-Village soccer facility in Fukushima Prefecture, where efforts to recover from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear disaster continue.

Runners will travel through all of the country's 47 prefectures over a period of 121 days.

Among those chosen to represent the Fukushima are Takayuki Ueno, a 46-year-old resident of the city of Minamisoma, and Hisanori Kokubun, 37, of Junior Chamber International in the city of Motomiya.