TOKYO -- The opening ceremony of the first-ever postponed Olympics will held on Friday evening under a state of emergency, with virtually no spectators and a reduced contingent of athletes in attendance at the National Stadium.
"After a long tunnel, an exit is now in our sight," Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said earlier this week. "The world is faced with great difficulties. Now is the time that we have to learn to unite. And, with the efforts and wisdom of mankind, we will have to deliver the Games so we can do that."
The long-anticipated ceremony will be less of a showcase of Japan's recovery from the 2011 earthquake or humanity's victory over COVID-19 than its creators intended. Rather, the hastily reconfigured show may highlight the problems that have plagued the event.
On top of the deadly pandemic, three directors and a musical composer have been dismissed over scandals. Praised as "best prepared host ever" by International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, the snags have made a mockery of those words in the eyes of critics.
Just one day before the opening, the Tokyo organizing committee fired Kentaro Kobayashi, the show director, for joking about the Holocaust in a comedy act in 1998. The dismissal came three days after composer Keigo Oyamada resigned for abusing students with disabilities in the past. His part in the ceremony, a roughly four-minute piece to be played at the start of the ceremony, was hurriedly replaced.
As with the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, the emperor will open the games. Earlier, Japan's Air Self-Defense Force aerobatics team Blue Impulse drew five Olympic rings in the sky over the stadium to coincide with the end of the torch relay.
U.S. First Lady Jill Biden, left, meets Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, center, and his wife Mariko Suga at Akasaka Palace State Guest House on Thursday ahead of the opening of the Olympics. © Reuters But the pandemic will make this an Olympics unlike any before. Not all of the 11,000 athletes from more than 200 countries will march in the opening ceremony. Some will skip the event entirely to avoid the risk of infection.
Canada said only 30 to 40 of its 370 athletes -- the country's largest contingent since 1984 -- will participate in the ceremony.
Those who do march will practice social distancing, which means the ceremony will be 30 minutes longer than the original estimate. Greece will lead the march, as is customary, followed by the refugee Olympic team and athletes from Russia, as Russia was banned from fielding an official team due to doping violations. The final delegations to enter the stadium will be the U.S., France and Japan. The U.S. and France will host the Olympics in 2024 and 2028. The other teams will march in Japanese alphabetical order.
Due to the ban on spectators, only 950 people will be allowed into the 68,000-seat National Stadium including dignitaries, sports officials and the media.
Around 15 top-level dignitaries will attend, including U.S. first lady Jill Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Luvsannamsrai Oyun-Erdene of Mongolia. That is a much smaller number than in previous Olympics. London 2012 welcomed top-level dignitaries from around 80 countries, while Rio de Janeiro 2016 had around officials from roughly 40 nations.
Suga on Thursday kicked off three days of Olympics diplomacy, meeting Jill Biden and WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. On Friday, Suga met Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla to seek faster delivery of coronavirus vaccine shipments. Pfizer provided 40,000 doses of COVID vaccine to athletes and other people involved in the games and Bourla is to attend the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony.
The ceremony will also stand out for its dearth of visible corporate sponsors. Top-tier sponsors like Toyota Motor and Panasonic will not send executives. Other domestic sponsors, including NTT and NEC, are also staying away. The sponsors' reluctance suggests they are concerned that association with an Olympiad, which many Japanese oppose, could hurt their brands.
Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was key to Tokyo's successful bid and delaying the Games for a year so that they could be held in "full form," will not attend the ceremony. Abe serves as honorary supreme adviser to Tokyo 2020.