The flame of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games has been handed over to the Japanese side in a scaled-down handover ceremony in Athens on Thursday, amid the novel coronavirus spread that has cast doubt on this global sports event, which is currently scheduled to begin on July 24.

The Tokyo Games' representative, Japanese Olympic swimmer Naoko Imoto received the lit torch from Greece's Olympic Committee chief Spyros Capralos in a brief ceremony closed to spectators at Athen's Panathenaic stadium, site of the first modern Games in 1896.

The flame was then transferred into a small receptacle and will travel to Japan aboard the "Tokyo 2020 Go" aircraft, which took off from Tokyo's Haneda airport Wednesday.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic flame will arrive in Japan on Friday and kick off the domestic relay on March 26 starting from the Japanese prefecture of Fukushima.

Despite Greece canceling the majority of the Tokyo 2020 torch relay on Greek soil, and a series of measures implemented to reduce risks, the standard torch procedure has been followed so far from the ignition of the flame to the handover ceremony on Thursday.

The spread of the coronavirus has forced the postponement and cancellation of a number of influential sports events. However up to this moment, both Japan and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have been insisting to host the Games as scheduled.

Since last week, a growing number of athletes have voiced concerns, believing that competing and practicing amid the coronavirus spread leading up to the Games has put them in danger.

On Wednesday, IOC president Thomas Bach stressed it's too early to decide the fate of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in a teleconference with the representatives of athletes.

"Everybody realized that we still have more than four months to go" until Tokyo 2020, he said.