The ceremony marking the departure of the Olympic torch relay on March 25, four months before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics, will be held without an audience as a precaution against the pandemic, organizers announced on Monday.

“The great start ceremony and the first section” of the route on the first day of the relay, organized in the department of Fukushima (northeast of the country), “will not be open to the public but will be broadcast live,” according to a statement from Tokyo-2020.