The world's oldest person, aged 118, will carry the Olympic Torch in Japan this May.
Kane Tanaka is nearly as old as the modern Olympic Games itself, which started all the way back in 1896. In an interview with CNN, Tanaka spoke about the honor, which will see her take the flame as it passes through Shime, Fukuoka.
The supercentenarian, a person who is over the age of 110, has survived through illness and deadly world events. Indeed, she managed to beat cancer twice, lived through two world wars, and has now lived through two pandemics.
Tanaka, a lover of fizzy drinks, will be pushed in a wheelchair for most of the 328 feet she is expected to carry the torch. However, she will be walking the last few steps before passing the torch onto the next runner.
For the event, Tanaka will be wearing her sneakers that she was gifted for her 118th birthday in January.
"It's great she reached that age and she can still keep up an active lifestyle -- we want other people to see that and feel inspired, and not to think age is a barrier," her grandson Eiji Tanaka, who is in his 60s, told CNN.
Tanaka was born in 1903 and got married at 19, before going on to have four children with her husband, a rice shop owner. She has five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Until the age of 103, she worked in the family store.
Despite having lived through two world wars and the Spanish flu in 1918, her grandson Eiji described her as being someone who prefers to think about the future.
"I don't remember her talking much about the past ... She's very forward-thinking -- she really enjoys living in the present," he said.
The centenarian currently resides in a nursing home, where she is accustomed to waking up early in the morning and playing the strategic board game, Othello.
The 118-year-old's family have sadly been unable to visit her for a year and a half amid the coronavirus pandemic.
However, they insist that being consistently curious and doing math greatly contribute to her maintaining a healthy body and healthy mind.
Tanaka now hopes to break the record for the oldest person to ever live, which is currently held by a woman from France, who died when she was 122.
