The open competition for the design of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games Emblems wrapped up successfully on Monday (7 December) with 14,599 entries.

Over the two-week period of the contest, Tokyo 2020 received 12,900 individual entries and 1,699 group entries.

“We were delighted to receive such a huge number of applications and that so many people actively took part in the competition. I firmly believe the great passion shown by all applicants will serve to further drive the success of the Tokyo 2020 Games. It will be an extremely difficult task to select a single winning entry from among so many, but we will ensure that our selection process is fair, transparent and meets with general approval. I would like to thank everyone who worked so hard on their designs and made the competition such a great success,” said Ryohei Miyata, Chairperson of the Tokyo 2020 Emblems Selection Committee.

The next stage of the selection process will consist of three steps:

- The organising committee will begin checking that submitted entries comply with format and design requirements with immediate effect.

- From Tuesday, 15 December, valid entries will be reviewed by the Tokyo 2020 Emblems Selection Committee and a group of 20 additional professional designers. Entries will be evaluated for quality of design, and a first round of selection will be conducted to select between 100–200 shortlisted entries.

- From Thursday, 7 January, the Tokyo 2020 Emblems Selection Committee will re-evaluate selected designs and narrow them down to a final shortlist of 3 or 4 designs.

The Tokyo 2020 Emblems will be announced in spring 2016. The winning entry will receive an official invitation to attend the opening ceremonies of both the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The competition was open to everyone regardless of previous experience or formal qualifications, and welcomed both individual and group applications. Individual competition entries were invited from Japanese nationals over 18 years-old and foreign nationals over 18 years-old with the right of residence in Japan. Children and foreigners not resident in Japan were also able to take part via the group entry system (10 persons maximum) as long as at least one person met the above age, nationality and residential requirements.