"Imagine the world in a year: a world where the curtain is set to rise on the Olympic and Paralympic Games" was the message the 20-year-old Japanese swimmer Rikako Ikee delivered to the world in a one-minute video released at the 15-minute subdued ceremony held behind closed doors at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo on Thursday. 

The event was held the same date (July 23) and time (8 p.m. local) as the opening ceremony of the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 to mark the one-year countdown of the Games. 

"Athletes from all over the world should be here, gazing up at the Olympic flame. The future that we took for granted transformed into something completely different," said Ikee, expressing the bitterness for everyone to miss to Games in 2020. 

Ikee won six gold medals at the 2018 Asian Games and competed in seven events at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. She was discharged from the hospital in December last year after undergoing 10 months of treatment for acute lymphocytic leukemia and kept alive her hope of competing at home next year.  

She drew on her own experience to encourage athletes who have been training hard for the Games and encouraged them to have faith that "one year from today the flame of hope will light these very grounds."

Various venues that will host Olympics events next year, including the newly-built Ariake Arena, were lit up in the Olympic colors to mark the occasion.

IOC chief hails Tokyo 2020 as 'symbol of hope'

Thomas Bach, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president, said on Wednesday that the Tokyo 2020 Games will be "a symbol of hope" for the world.

He was speaking in a video message released one day before the postponed Games' one-year countdown on Wednesday.

"This milestone of the one year to go is a very significant one, for sport but also for the worldwide society," Bach said.

"It can and will be the great comeback festival of sport to the international scene and we are preparing for this in the one year that remains for us to make these Olympic games a real great festival of hope, of resilience and of solidarity."

"This Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 in 21 can, should and will be the light at the end of the tunnel that all humankind is in at this moment; we are living in a period of great uncertainty. Then at the end of this very difficult period for humankind, the Olympic Games can be a great symbol of hope, of optimism, of solidarity and unity in all our diversity."

Tokyo 2020 preparing to deliver Games with COVID-19

The Games were pushed back for a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic but questions remain about what can be done to contain the virus in order to ensure smooth preparations leading up to the new start date.

In response to what steps the IOC and the local organizers have taken to manage COVID-19's impact on the Games, Bach said, "This is a mammoth task because we cannot prepare the Olympic Games as we are used to. In fact, we have to prepare for multiple scenarios for the Olympic Games. 

"So there was established one principle for all and this is a top priority – that the Olympic Games will respect and safeguard the health of all the participants… So, we want to prepare these Games and adapt it to the circumstances of the crisis at the time, while ensuring for everybody the Olympic spirit."

On Tuesday, Tokyo 2020 organizing committee chief executive Toshiro Muto, said they are preparing to host the Games next year even if the global coronavirus pandemic hasn't eased substantially.

"It is rather difficult for us to expect that the coronavirus pandemic is contained," said Muto. "But if we can deliver the Games in Tokyo with coronavirus, Tokyo can be the role model for the next Olympic Games or other various international events."

(Cover image: Japanese swimming athlete Rikako Ikee holds the lantern containing the Olympic flame as she speaks during the "One Step Forward – +1 Message – TOKYO 2020" video message unveiling event at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, Japan, July 23, 2020. /VCG)