Summer Olympics in Tokyo

After 56 years, the Summer Olympics are returning to the Japanese city of Tokyo. From 24 July to 9 August 2020, at least 206 nations will compete with over 11,000 athletes in a total of 33 Olympic sports and 50 disciplines. To this end, the old Olympic Stadium dating from 1964 was demolished and replaced by a new building costing around 1.1 billion euros. The building, which will be used for the opening and closing ceremonies as well as for athletics and football, holds 68,000 spectators.

As always, Philately Liechtenstein commissioned an artist from the host country to design Liechtenstein's Olympic stamps. Keiko Yamano painted the two motifs "Synchronised Swimming" (face value: CHF 1.70) and "Judo" (face value: CHF 2.80) in acrylic. The artist worked as a university lecturer for linguistics in Japan until 2000. Faced with her own mortality due to a blow to her health led her to painting. She produces most of her works in oil using traditional Japanese colours, but she also masters the art of calligraphy. She mainly shows her works at exhibitions in her home city of Tokyo.