Cancer-battling Rikako Ikee tapped to give speech at Olympic countdown event

Rikako Ikee, a Japanese swimming star who has her sights set on the 2024 Paris Games despite being diagnosed with leukemia, will feature in a one-year Tokyo Olympic countdown event, a source familiar with the plan said Tuesday.The 19-year-old is expected to address Olympic athletes in a keynote speech in the July 23 closed-door event at the National Stadium, the main venue for the sporting extravaganza, the source said.The Olympics have been postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, and Masanori Takaya, a spokesperson for the organizing committee, said last week, "We won't be holdi…READ FULL ARTICLE