Tokyo Olympics Open up With Naomi Osaka Lights Cauldron

The Olympics opened with dance performances highlighting the wrestle to prevail over the pandemic and tennis star Naomi Osaka lighting a cauldron with the symbolic flame of the Video games.

Friday’s ceremony at the Countrywide Stadium in Tokyo was stripped of pomp, most spectators and quite a few athletes just after Covid-19 pressured a adjust to the bustling celebrations that opened prior Game titles. 

Fewer than 1,000 people today were invited to check out, and only all around 5,700 athletes paraded by way of the stadium, down from far more than 10,000 in the opening ceremony in Rio in 2016. The U.S. group was all-around 260, much less than 50 % of the 613 athletes in Workforce United states of america. 

U.S. to start with lady Jill Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron ended up between the number of significant-profile foreign website visitors. Emperor Naruhito spoke briefly to declare the Online games open, but in Japanese he did not use the word “celebrate” that was supplied in the English translation.

At the finish of the ceremony, Ms. Osaka was the last carrier of the torch that experienced been introduced on a relay throughout Japan beginning in March. She lighted a cauldron atop a illustration of Mt. Fuji. The tennis star, a winner of the U.S. Open, is the daughter of a Japanese mom and Haitian father and grew up primarily in the U.S. She is representing Japan at the Video games.