The runner picked for the day he was born
10 October 1964. The Tokyo Olympics open, the first Games held in Asia. The last torchbearer climbs the steps and lights the cauldron. His name is Yoshinori Sakai. He never competed in a single Olympic event.
He was chosen for one reason: he was born in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, the morning the bomb fell. Nineteen years later he ran the final stretch of the relay because of the day he was born, chosen to stand for Japan's reconstruction and for peace.
The crowd watched the flame. Nobody watches the man carrying it. But that night the date did the choosing. He carried a day he never asked for, up a flight of steps, in front of the world, and set it alight.