TOKYO – The athletes marched into the arena masked and waving exuberantly. Dancers in pastel costumes and hats clapped and raised their arms in the air to create excitement. But there were no fans and no cheering audience – just row after row of mostly empty seats that stretched into the vastness of the huge Olympic Stadium in central Tokyo.
A year after initial planning, the opening ceremony of the 32nd Summer Olympics took place amid a persistent pandemic, with attendance limited to fewer than 1,000 dignitaries and other invited guests in a 68,000-seat stadium.
The Japanese public is exhausted from the pandemic and has widely spoken out against the Games. But the ceremony attempted to project a world that continued after more than a year of battling the virus when confetti pigeons fell from the sky and a rendition of “Imagine” on jumbotrons with performances by Angélique Kidjo, John. Legend and Keith Urban echoed through the huge stadium.
The organizers sprinkled traditional Japanese culture through the celebrations and staged a typical summer festival with lanterns and a taiko drum soundtrack as well as an excerpt from a famous kabuki piece.
In a different way, they took a more modern perspective, choosing Naomi Osaka, Japan’s most famous athlete to light the Olympic cauldron, and Rui Hachimura, the basketball star who plays for the Washington Wizards, as one of the standard bearers for Japan. They are just two of several mixed race athletes who represent a largely homogeneous Japan at the Olympics.
Although some competitions began earlier this week, the ceremony on Friday marked the official start of the Olympic Games. More than 11,000 athletes from 205 countries are expected to compete in 33 sports over the next two weeks.
Almost all events, such as the opening ceremony, take place without spectators and the athletes compete according to strict protocols that restrict their freedom of movement.
Usually it is the Olympians who face significant odds, but this time it was the organizers who fought an uphill battle to get that moment. What was intended as a showcase for Japan’s brilliant efficiency, superior service culture and attractiveness as a tourist destination has instead been inundated by fears of infection and scandals by the host committee.
The opening ceremony is often the host country’s chance to showcase itself – think Beijing’s regulated drummers in 2008 or London’s National Health Service dancing nurses four years later. But the Tokyo organizers put on a darker show.
In a moment of silence, a spokesman urged viewers around the world to remember the Covid-19 losers and athletes who died in previous Olympics, including the Israeli athletes who died in a terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Games were killed.
Although it was first mentioned in the organizers’ speeches, the ceremony relied on the original version of Tokyo’s Olympic bid as a symbol of the country’s recovery from the devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Fukushima in 2011. A single figure dressed in white and ghostly make-up danced on a platform in the middle of the field, while waves of light swept through the stadium.
And with illuminated drones over the stadium forming a giant spinning globe, the organizers were clearly trying to divert the Games’ message from the pandemic and scandals and towards the more anodyne issues of peace and global harmony.
But that message may have little resonance from the Japanese public as coronavirus infections in Tokyo have soared to a six-month high and domestic vaccine adoption is slow.
In quieter moments during the ceremony, demonstrators could be heard outside the stadium shouting “Stop the Olympics” through megaphones.
“I can’t really think of any real meaning or significance as to why we’re doing all of this,” said Kaori Hayashi, professor of sociology and media studies at Tokyo University. “We started recovering Fukushima, but that has been completely forgotten. And now we want to show the world that we have overcome Covid-19, but we have not yet overcome it. “
Updated
July 24, 2021, 8:42 p.m. ET
While the pandemic has presented the organizers of the Games with an unprecedented challenge, it was far from the only one.
Just a day before the opening ceremonies, the organizing committee sacked the ceremony’s creative director after it was discovered that he joked about the Holocaust during a television comedy years ago.
His discharge came just days after a composer resigned for the ceremony – and organizers withdrew a four-minute piece he had written – in response to a loud social media campaign criticizing him for being during had bullied severely disabled classmates during his school days.
And these were just the latest in a long line of setbacks.
Two years after the award, the government decided against an elegant stadium design by the famous architect Zaha Hadid for reasons of cost. The organizers had to abolish their first logo after allegations of plagiarism. The French public prosecutor’s office has charged the President of the Japanese Olympic Committee with allegations of corruption in connection with the application process. For fear of extreme heat in Tokyo, the International Olympic Committee moved the marathon to Sapporo on the North Island of Japan, 500 miles from the Olympic Stadium. And the president of the Tokyo Organizing Committee had to resign after sexist statements.
While the decision to move the Games forward amid a pandemic has drawn attention to the billions of dollars at stake for the International Olympic Committee, the international spotlight has been tough for Japan at times.
The year-long delay in the games exposed social issues such as sexism in a country where almost all top jobs are held by older men, as well as the conservative government’s opposition to gay and transgender rights.
But now that the Games are finally here, the sheer spectacle of the world’s greatest sporting event began to brush these issues aside.
Basics of the Summer Olympics
The night before the opening ceremony, Aya Kitamura, 37, a traditional Japanese musician, cycled to the Olympic Stadium to stake out the best vantage point from outside the venue.
“Of course, I understand that there are many opinions about the Olympics,” said Ms. Kitamura, who said her parents often shared stories about the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. “But as the games get closer, I think everyone gets a little more excited every day.”
The near absence of spectators disappointed some who said they did not understand why the Olympic Games are different from other recent sporting events with large crowds in Europe, where infection rates are still higher than in Japan.
“It’s kind of unfair that only a limited number of people can see the opening ceremony,” said Hinako Tamai, 19, an Olympic volunteer who took the media to the stadium on Friday night. “But there’s not much we can do about Covid.”
Among the hundreds of people seated in the $ 1.4 billion Olympic Stadium at the opening ceremony on Friday was Japan’s Emperor Naruhito, who officially opened the Games; the American first lady Jill Biden; President Emmanuel Macron of France, whose capital Paris will host the next Summer Games in 2024; and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization.
But several high profile potential attendees said they would not be in attendance, including Akio Toyoda, the executive director of Toyota, a prominent Olympic sponsor who had voted against Olympic television advertising in Japan. Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister who helped Tokyo secure the application for the Games, also decided to stay away.
Several foreign dignitaries, including Princess Anne of England and the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, chose not to come, citing coronavirus restrictions. South Korean President Moon Jae-in canceled a planned visit after being insulted by a Japanese diplomat.
Even if the Olympics doesn’t turn out to be a superspread event, it will be difficult for them to escape the shadow of the pandemic as the Delta variant spreads and the daily numbers of new cases in the Olympic Village add to the fear.
“I really feel that no matter what, the pandemic is creating the impression that money is putting money above public health,” said Jessamyn R. Abel, Associate Professor of Asian Studies at Pennsylvania State University.
And the fanfare of the games can only go so far with a cautious audience. Kentaro Tanaka, 28, an adviser in Tokyo who was walking his dog near the Olympic Stadium the night before it opened, said he likes football and plans to watch the Games but questioned authorities’ priorities.
“Aren’t there other things the government needs to work on?” said Mr Tanaka, before wondering aloud when he could finally get a vaccination appointment.
Hikari Hida contributed to the coverage.
