Tennis star Naomi Osaka delighted the crowd with her appearance to ignite the Olympic Cauldron in the Olympic Stadium at the Opening Ceremony last night.

Then, at around 12:50am local time, another racquet sports star, 2016 badminton women’s doubles gold medallist Ayaka Takahashi, ignited the almost identical bowl at the Ariake Yume-no-Ohashi Bridge on the waterfront.

The Flame will burn using hydrogen fuel in a bowl designed by Oki Sato.

The choice of Takahashi means that women both began and ended the Tokyo 2020 Torch Relay.

In Ancient Olympia, Greek shooting gold medallist Anna Korakaki had become the first woman to run with the Flame in the ancient stadium.

Japan’s 2004 Athens gold medallist Mizuki Nogumi took over outside the memorial grove dedicated to Pierre de Coubertin.

The Flame was received at the handover by swimmer Naoto Imoto, a swimmer at Atlanta 1996.

At the Grand Start in Fukushima, members of Japan’s 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup-winning squad were the star attraction of the launch of the 121-day relay as they carried the Torch as a group from the J Village Football Training Centre.

The presence of women at every key juncture of the Relay has sent an important message in a year when the International Olympic Committee have strongly promoted gender equality.

It is the third time in successive Games that the Flame has been re-lit. 

At London 2012, Austin Playfoot, a Torchbearer the last time Britain's capital had staged the Olympics, in 1948 ignited the cauldron after it had been repositioned in the Stadium following the opening ceremony.

In 2016, Jorge Gomes, an athlete from Rio de Janeiro, lit a second public cauldron at Candelaria, close to the waterfront naval district of the city.