'A golden chance': Japan's Fukushima eyes Olympics for recovery message

The J-Village sports complex in Japan's Fukushima was once a staging ground for battling the 2011 nuclear disaster, but next year it will host Olympic teams and the torch relay, sending a message of recovery.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic torch relay will begin at the centre, and Olympic softball and baseball matches will be played elsewhere in Fukushima, as part of efforts that officials and residents hope will help repair the reputation of a region now synonymous with the nuclear meltdown.

"The torch relay is a golden opportunity to send a message about our reconstruction to the world," said Yusuke Takana, a 32-year-old official at the J-Village, from where the Olympic torch will set off on March 26, 2020.

"The J-Village overcame the disaster and has been revived in its original form as a sports training centre," Takana said.

Built in 1997 as a fully fledged sport training complex, the J-Village was radically transformed by the nuclear meltdown.

Thousands of workers wearing radiation protection suits, gas masks and dosimeters were dispatched every day to the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant from the sports centre, located just on the edge of the initial 20-kilometre (12-mile) no-go zone.

Sports fields were used as a heliport, a decontamination centre and temporary houses were set up for plant workers, while armoured vehicles and firefighters were stationed at its parking lots.

"It was so painful to see these buildings being put up on the ground where we trained in our youth," said Ayako Masuda, a former goalkeeper with a women's football club run by the nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO).

The J-Village's pitch was her team's home ground, said the 44-year-old, who stayed with TEPCO as an employee after retiring from football.

- 'Difficult tasks' remain -
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-'I want to come back' -
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