There are less than 100 days to go before the Tokyo Olympics and the torch relay is busy crisscrossing all of Japan’s 47 prefectures. But far from building excitement for the delayed 2020 Games, the flame is sparking anxiety about proceeding with the tournament amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Torch runners are being heckled by protesters. “Japanese people are generally cheerful, kind and polite,” says Mieko Nakabayashi, a former lawmaker and current professor at Waseda University’s School of Social Sciences in Tokyo.