Tick tock, tick tock: Tokyo Olympics clock hits 500-day mark

Tick tock, tick tock. The Tokyo Olympic clock has hit 500 days to go.

Organizers marked the milestone on Tuesday, unveiling the stylized pictogram figures for next year's Tokyo Olympics. The pictogram system was first used extensively in 1964 when the Japanese capital lasted hosted the Summer Olympics– just 19 years after the end of World War II.

Rio Olympics 4x100m relay silver medalist Shota Iizuka (L) assumes a posture similar to the pictogram representing his sport at the unveiling event for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic sports pictograms in Tokyo, Japan, March 12, 2019. /VCG Photo

A picture system to illustrate sports events was used in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and 12 years later in London. Other Olympics sporadically used some drawings for the same purpose.

But the 1964 Olympics originated the standardized symbols that have become familiar in every Olympics since then.

Tokyo 2020 pictograms designer Masaaki Hiromura attends the unveiling event for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic sports pictograms in Tokyo, Japan, March 12, 2019. /VCG Photo

"They are simple but yet dynamic," the symbols' designer Masaaki Hiromura said, explaining his designs to several hundred people at the ceremony.

"These are pictograms that look like they are about to start moving."

Hiromura has designed 50 pictograms for 33 sports. Some sports will use more than one pictogram when the Games open on July 24, 2020.