The competition to design the official medals for Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games is now open to Japanese nationals and residents of Japan over 18 years of age.

The competition is aimed at those with design experience - young and old, design students and professionals. As a first step, applicants will be requested to submit their personal profiles and examples of previous design work for evaluation by 19 January 2018.

Applicants must:

• have previously created 3D art work in their academic or professional careers

• be 18 years or above on 1 April 2017

• be residing in Japan during the selection period (between January and August 2018)

• be able to communicate in Japanese – it will be necessary to liaise with the production company at various stages during the mock-up production process

Competition guidelines are available for download from the Tokyo 2020 website (available in Japanese only).

Those judged to meet the necessary criteria will be invited to submit designs for the Olympic medal (rear side) and for the Paralympic medal design (front and rear sides). Designers must submit their proposals for all three designs as a set.

A Tokyo 2020 medal design selection panel (TBC) comprising members of the Tokyo 2020 Brand Advisory Board, former athletes and professional designers will review all entries and select a shortlist of designs by April 2018. The designers of these and a manufacturing institution will create three-dimensional mock-ups of the shortlisted designs, with the winning design set being selected in August 2018. The new medals will be unveiled in 2019.

The Olympic and Paralympic medals are something very special for all athletes. London 2012 Olympics boxing gold medallist and current WBA middleweight champion Ryota Murata commented, “The medals need to last for ever. A simple design that you never tire of is better. The Tokyo 1964 and Nagano 1998 medals were impressive in that they had a Japanese feel to them.”

Earlier this year Tokyo 2020 commenced the nationwide collection of discarded and obsolete electronic devices, in order to use the metal they contain in the production of medals – the first time such an innovative and environmentally-friendly approach has been adopted by an Olympic and Paralympic Organising Committee.