Hiroshima Lights Torch for Asian Games

In the city where a single flash once turned the sky white, a new flame was lit.

Hiroshima hosted a torch-lighting ceremony on Thursday for the upcoming Asian Games, using the city’s enduring symbol of remembrance and hope as its source. The event took place in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, a setting that turned a routine relay ritual into something far more charged.

Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui drew the fire directly from the Flame of Peace, the monument dedicated to the victims of the Aug. 6, 1945 U.S. atomic bombing. From that eternal flame, he lit a torch, then passed its power on. A lighting rod held by Hajime Moriyasu, head coach of the Japanese men's national soccer team, was ignited from Matsui’s torch, before the flame was carefully transferred into a golden lantern.

The symbolism was impossible to miss. A city once destroyed, now sending its light across Asia.

For Moriyasu, the moment carried a personal echo. He began his career as a corporate and professional player in Hiroshima, and on this day he stood not as a midfielder or manager, but as a messenger.

“I think that sports have the power of binding different values and cultures together,” he said at the ceremony. “I want athletes (who are set to participate in the Asian Games) to compete with all their strength while wishing for peace.”

From Sept. 19 to Oct. 4, that wish will follow the torch to Aichi Prefecture in central Japan, where the quadrennial Asian Games will unfold. The competition will bring together athletes from across the continent, chasing medals, records, and moments of glory.

They will also be carrying something less tangible, but just as real: a flame that began in Hiroshima, lit in memory, sent out in hope.