The last torch bearer in Marseille will climb on the roof of the Velodrome stadium on May 9.
Cypriot weightlifter Antonis Martasidis and an unnamed Greek competitor have tested positive for banned substances and have been expelled from the Rio Olympics, their teams said on Friday.
The flame for the London Olympics, which start on July 27 after a 70-day torch relay around Britain, was formally handed over at a ceremony in a damp Athens on Thursday.
Greek torchlighting organisers said the dress rehearsal the day before, which usually attracts crowds, will be held without spectators while accreditations have been trimmed to the bare minimum and receptions and lunches scrapped.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics flame handover ceremony in Athens this week will be a scaled-down event with only a few Tokyo Games officials and torch bearers inside the stadium to protect everyone from the coronavirus, the Hellenic Olympic Committee said on Monday. The handover ceremony usually attracts thousand of spectators, officials and ceremony participants in the central Athens' Panathenaic Stadium, site of the first modern Olympics in 1896.
Hellenic Olympic Committee President Spyros Capralos told reporters a meeting had been held with a Greek health risk management company to be ready 'in case anything happens'.
Little-known retired swimmer Naoko Imoto will be a last-minute stand-in to receive the Olympic flame during a scaled back handover in Athens on Thursday, Tokyo 2020 organisers said. The Tokyo 2020 team had contacted Imoto, who lives in Greece, only hours before making the announcement on Wednesday evening in the Japanese capital.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Tuesday gave further unequivocal backing to this summer's Tokyo Olympics, urging athletes to prepare "full steam" despite the coronavirus threat. Multiple sports events around the world have been cancelled during the epidemic, which has killed more than 3,000 people in China and spread to more than 60 nations including Japan where infections are near 1,000 and 12 people have died.
A Syrian amputee swimmer, granted asylum in Greece, will be a torch-bearer for the 2016 Rio Games and is to run with the Olympic flame through a refugee camp in Athens on Tuesday.
A Syrian amputee swimmer ran with the Olympic flame through a refugee camp in Athens on Tuesday to highlight the plight of the million people who fled their homes for Europe since last year.
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