Protesters demanding the Tokyo Olympics are scrapped have gathered in the Japanese capital just hours before the Games are due to kick off.
Angry locals waving banners that read 'NOlympics' and 'Cancel the Tokyo Olympics' were pictured in Tokyo at a torch relay event - which this year sees 'runners' walk just a few steps before passing the flame over to avoid the risk of Covid infections.
After being passed between the final group of volunteers today, the flame will be transported - not by runner - to the main Olympic stadium where it will light a cauldron and mark the start of the Games.
The ceremony will begin at 8m local time (12pm GMT) and is scheduled to last around three hours including the athletes' procession.
But, even at the 11th hour, demonstrators furious that the event is going ahead during a pandemic and against the backdrop of rising cases in Japan gathered to call for the event to be scrapped.
There are now 110 cases of Covid linked directly to the Games after another 25 were reported Thursday, bringing the total number of infected athletes to 13 including another member of the Czech team - road cyclist Michal Schlegel.
Three members of the media were also included in the latest total - which only counts those who tested positive in Japan and not those who were diagnosed in their home countries before making the journey.
Schlegel tested positive at the team's training base in Izu and will miss Saturday's road race.
The Czech Olympic Committee said in a statement Friday that Schlegel is in isolation, and that Michael Kukrle and Zdenek Stybar will be its only two riders lining up at Musashinonomori Park for one of the first medal events of the Summer Games.
Czech beach volleyball players Marketa Slukova and Ondrej Perusic and table tennis player Pavel Sirucek also tested positive earlier this week.
That has prompted the Czech Olympic team to investigate whether the outbreak is linked to its chartered flight to Tokyo.
The Games were supposed to take place last year but organisers took a high-stakes gamble to postpone them due to the Covid pandemic, in the hopes that the virus would be under control by now.
Officials now have the unenviable task of staging the Games while the most-infectious form of Covid to date is in circulation, causing cases to rise rapidly in Japanamid fears the Olympics will become a super-spreader event.
Even this slimmed-down version of the competition - with strict limits on who can stay in Athletes' Village and crowds banned from stadiums - will see some 50,000 people gather in the largest international event since the pandemic began.
And while Covid cases driven by the Delta variant are rising rapidly in other countries -
