Olympics: Japan begins 1-year countdown to start of 2020 Tokyo Games

But with an ongoing French probe into allegations thatTokyo paid bribes to secure the games and potential anger from jiltedticket-seekers, many big tests still lie ahead.

Tokyo celebrates the landmark on Wednesday, with oneyear to go until the Olympic flame takes up its two-week residency at the nownearly completed Olympic Stadium between the Japanese capital's bustlingShinjuku and Shibuya areas.

Organizers are confident venues will be completed ontime and they will be full during the event that runs from July 24 to Aug. 92020, 56 years since Tokyo last held the Olympics. The Paralympics will followAug. 25 to Sept. 6.

«We (the organizing committee) started with 44people and now there's about 3,000...Everyone has special skills,»reflected Organizing Committee President Yoshiro Mori recently.

«At first we had different attitudes, but sinceabout two years ago we've developed a sense of unity. We've become so good atwhat we do it's a shame we have to disband the team next year.»

The organizing committee has begun an ambitiousprogram of test events in which it will check the operational readiness ofstaff and venues, with some, like the modern pentathlon world cup, alreadyhaving thrown up significant challenges.

At that event held at Musashino Forest Sport Plaza onJune 27-30, strong winds and wild weather caused part of the fencingcompetition to be moved indoors, providing a real-world test of what may happennext year.

The four new sports to be contested at the games --karate, sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing -- are also holding testevents, with the latter going smoothly and with nice-sized waves at TsurigasakiBeach in Chiba Prefecture last weekend.

Baseball and softball are also back on the Olympicprogram after being absent since the 2008 Games in Beijing, Japan's affinitywith the bat and ball game a major reason for their re-inclusion.

Earlier this month, the organizing committee said 3.22million tickets were sold during the first domestic sales phase. They hadoriginally estimated about 7.8 million tickets would be available for allevents, but that figure is now expected to exceed 9 million, according tosources.

A second chance lottery will be held for Japaneseresidents in August, and another 3 million or so tickets will be available inother phases while 20 to 30 percent are usually reserved for internationalspectators and sponsors.

The torch relay for the Tokyo Olympics, which havegenerated record domestic sponsorship revenues of more than $3 billion, willcommence in Fukushima and pass through other areas in northeast Japan hit bythe March 2011 earthquake-tsunami disaster.

The much-touted «reconstruction Olympics»are being spun as Japan's chance to showcase the progress it has made in therecovery of the regions that were badly damaged by the quake and nucleardisasters.

In a bid to restore its tainted image, the JapaneseOlympic Committee, which has set its gold medal target at 30, turned to Olympicjudo champion Yasuhiro Yamashita to replace Tsunekazu Takeda.

The long-time president Takeda stepped down in June toremove the distraction of the vote-buying investigation which is looking intohis conduct during the bidding phase.

Despite every effort to keep costs down, the budget ofthe Tokyo Games stands at 1.35 trillion yen (about $12.5 billion), compared to$13.2 billion for Rio 2016 and $15 billion for London 2012. The 1964 TokyoOlympics cost about 1 trillion yen.

The two-week games will feature a record 33 sports and339 events. The festival of sport will use a total of 43 venues -- 25 existing,10 temporary and eight new permanent sites.

«Ticket sales have begun, the torch relay coursehas been decided, and we're at a point where the lives of locals will bedirectly affected (by Olympic preparations),» said Mori.

«The athletes are feeling the pressure. We aregrateful that the feeling of elation created by the Japanese people is givingthe Olympics a boost.»