The 2020 (yes, they're still called 2020) Tokyo Summer Olympic Games will officially open Friday with the Opening Ceremony, to be staged in a fanless Japan National Stadium.
The ceremony officially got underway at 8 p.m. local time, 7 a.m. ET. Athletes marched in by country, alphabetized by their position in the Japanese language. Future hosts (United States in 2028, France in 2024) march in at the end, with current host Japan coming last of all.
You can stream the ceremony live right here.
The revelation that Simone Biles has dual citizenship with both the United States and Belize has to be pretty cold comfort for Belize. (9:12 a.m.)
The Hot Tongan, Pita Taufatofua, once again returns! This time with enough baby oil to grease up the entire nation of Japan. Here's our feature on his now three-time Olympic career. And shortly afterward, Vanuatu debuted its own oiled-up flagbearer. (8:53 a.m.)
The athletes who have already marched in are just sitting down on the floor. This takes awhile. (8:40 a.m.)
Now that's what we call entering in style. Welcome Kenya! #KEN#StrongerTogether#[email protected]/BDqudmDJip
— Olympics (@Olympics) July 23, 2021
Once again, Russia is in the Olympics despite running a state-sanctioned doping operation. Of course, they can't be called "Russia," even though every announcer calls them "Russia," and the name they're competing under, "ROC," literally stands for "Russian Olympic Committee." Severe punishment, definitely. (8:32 a.m.)
Different nations are reacting in very different ways to the lack of audience. Some appear surprised or disappointed. Others, like Canada, are leaning into the silence, clapping in unison to create their own noise. (8:14 a.m.)
In theory, the IOC's recommendation for national delegations to have both male and female flagbearers is a wonderful idea. In practice … not so much. Since there's only one flag, the two flagbearers have to figure out how to split their ceremonial duties. Some enter with both carrying the flag, some pass it back and forth, and some appear to be fighting over who gets to wave the flag. (8:06 a.m.)
As the athletes march in, the commentary on fashion begins. Italy and Ukraine … woof. (7:56 a.m.)
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸Love it! Sam Mikulak gets flagbearer honors as the Women’s and Men’s gymnastics teams from the USA hold their own private Opening Ceremony, since they won’t be able to be in the Stadium tonight. #tokyo2020#gymnastics#olympics
🎥 Lisa Spini pic.twitter.com/Auruiq67Tc
— Inside Gymnastics (@InsideGym) July 23, 2021
The Argentinean contingent came to throw down. They're easily the liveliest of the bunch in the early going, and nobody in that delegation is saving any energy for another day. (7:47 a.m.)
If the music sounds familiar to you, you're not dreaming: this year's athletes are marching in to music from video games including Final Fantasy, Sonic the Hedgehog and Dragon Quest. (7:45 a.m.)
More than 200 nations will be marching through the stadium, led, as always, by Greece. As the ancestral home of the Olympics, Greece receives the honor of marching in first, followed by the refugee team. All athletes are masked. (7:41 a.m.)
An acrobatic carpentry segment ends with the Olympic rings built in real time. There's a smattering of applause in the stands. Seats have been covered with a range of colors to give the appearance of a full stadium, but it's largely empty. During quiet moments, the chanting of the protestors outside is audible. (7:34 a.m.)
The Opening Ceremony's In Memoriam segment honored not only the many lost to COVID, but the Israeli athletes murdered by terrorists during the 1972 Olympic Games. After many years of criticism, this marked the first time the Olympics publicly honored those athletes during a ceremony. (7:23 a.m.)
Which U.S. athletes will march? Basketball player Sue Bird and baseball player Eddy Alvarez will lead the U.S. contingent into the stadium, but many familiar faces won't be. Gymnasts and swimmers tend to skip the Opening Ceremony because it requires so much standing, and the track and field contingent hasn't even arrived in Tokyo. But the men's and women's basketball teams, among others, are likely to be in attendance. (7:18 a.m.)
The initial video kicking off the Ceremony skillfully pivots from the euphoria of Tokyo winning the Olympic bid in 2013, through the several Games afterward, and then to the joy of 2020 beginning … only to shut down in total darkness. But from out of that darkness, a montage of athletes training at home, then coming together, then building to a dramatic countdown and fireworks spectacular to kick off the start of the Games. "Apart but not alone" is the early theme. (7:05 a.m. ET)
The Opening Ceremony begins with subdued, measured silence, unsurprising given the sparse nature of the audience. Fewer than 1,000 dignitaries and officials are in attendance, along with a small fraction of assembled athletes, media and other officials. (7:00 a.m. ET)
Outside the stadium, protests erupted and disrupted traffic all around National Stadium:
Olympic protesters have shut down one of the busiest roads in Tokyo, in Harajuku. Police are clearing the road for them and yelling into megaphones asking passersby to make way for protesters pic.twitter.com/xkSVNY7Cdj
— Michelle Ye Hee Lee (@myhlee) July 23, 2021
Yahoo Sports' Henry Bushnell and Shalise Manza Young are in the arena for the Opening Ceremony. Here's what it looks like a few hours before showtime:
Hello pic.twitter.com/m4V3dJbxJB
— Henry Bushnell (@HenryBushnell) July 23, 2021
EWF’s ‘fantasy’ in Japanese…the groove I never knew I needed pic.twitter.com/NqT7Rn2N3p
— shalise manza young (@shalisemyoung) July 23, 2021
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More Olympics coverage from Yahoo Sports:
Do Ledecky’s opponents think they even have a chance?
Biles is first female athlete to get Twitter hashtag emoji
Tokyo Opening Ceremony chief fire over Holocaust jokes
Keyser: Softball needs Olympics, but also baseball to care
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