The Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games emblems will be revealed to the world on Friday (24 July) at a special ceremony in the Japanese capital.

Attending the event, amongst others, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Plaza will be Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori, IPC Vice President Andrew Parsons, who is a member of the IOC Co-ordination Commission for Tokyo 2020, and IOC Vice President John Coates, who is the Chair of the IOC Co-ordination Commission.

Friday’s launch coincides with the five years to go landmark until the start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The Paralympics in Tokyo will take place between 26 August and 7 September and will involve around 4,500 athletes competing in 22 sports.

The emblem launch is a major milestone for the Organising Committee as it will represent the Games not just for the next five years, but for generations to come.

The last summer Paralympics Games emblem to be launched was for Rio 2016. Back in November 2011 more than 200,000 people saw it was unveiled at the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, the iconic lagoon that will stage canoe and rowing events at next year’s Paralympics.

The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games emblem will be the 16th of its kind; the first Paralympic Games were held in Rome, Italy, in 1960 and have taken place every four years since.

Today the Paralympic Games are widely regarded as the world’s third biggest sporting event and the premiere sporting spectacle for driving societal change. At London 2012 they attracted 2.8 million spectators and a cumulative global TV audience of 3.8 billion.