"BATON" stands for Building Athletes' Village with Timber of the Nation and it is an initiative to construct the Village Plaza for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the Japanese capital, using timber produced in participating municipalities. 

The news comes as organisers have also revealed the latest mock-ups of the Tokyo Olympic Stadium.

The design for the new Stadium, by architect Kengo Kuma, focuses upon a scaled-down, wood-rich Japanese-style interior decoration scheme.

Set to be completed by November 2019, it is due to cost ¥149 billion (£1 billion/$1.3 billion/€1.1 billion).

A Japan Sport Council (JSC) official has vowed to work with the constructors of the Olympic Stadium to prevent any further deaths by overwork.

Earlier this month, labour standards authorities in Japan reportedly ruled that a 23-year-old who committed suicide after working on the venue’s construction site was affected by long-working hours.

The unnamed worker allegedly clocked 200 hours of overtime at the Stadium, the planned centrepiece for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, in the month before his body was found in April.

The Village Plaza will be one of the main facilities in the Athletes' Village as well as the venue for team welcome ceremonies.

After the Games, the Plaza will be dismantled with the timber being returned to the local areas to be re-used.

The Plaza will house a media centre, cafes, florists and general shops as well as provide service to the athletes, visiting accredited Olympic and Paralympic families, members of the media and guests of athletes.

Tokyo will participate in the project as host while cities and towns have combined from the Hokkaido prefecture, the Yamagata prefecture, the Shizuoka prefecture and the Chiba prefecture, which will host surfing competition on its Tsurigasaki Beach during the Games, among others.

The full list of participating municipalities can be found here.