TOKYO, June 6: The Olympic flame arrived in Tokyo on Sunday for the second leg of a six-week relay in the run-up to the Athens Games in August, on the same day the Japanese rainy season started.

Torrential rain failed to dampen Japanese enthusiasm as the Olympic flame touched down in Tokyo, host city of the 1964 Games. Amid heavy security, former baseball player Kazushige Nagashima was the first torch bearer on the 53-kilometre run which began near Tokyo Bay.

Olympic speed-skating champion Hiroyasu Shimizu and Kyoko Iwasaki, who won swimming gold at the 1992 Barcelona Games, were among 136 participants. Fifteen-year-old table tennis player Ai Fukuhara was set to run the final leg.

The flame arrived in Tokyo from Melbourne after returning to Sydney, venue for the 2000 Olympics, on Friday. South Korean capital Seoul, which staged the Games in 1988, will receive the flame on Monday.

The flame, lit from the sun's rays in Olympia on March 25, will cover 33 cities, taking in all five continents for the first time. It returns to Greece on July 9 for a final homecoming tour before lighting the cauldron at the Olympic stadium on Aug 13. -Reuters