The 2020 Olympics kicked off in Tokyo Friday night with the OpeningCeremony, where athletes paraded in to an empty stadium to the video game music and stars sang a rendition of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Imagine.”
Trepidations throughout Japan have threatened for months to drown out the usual packaged glitz of the opening. Inside the stadium after dusk Friday, however, a precisely calibrated ceremony sought to portray that the Games — and their spirit — are going on.
“You had to face great challenges on your Olympic journey,” Bach told the athletes. “Today you are making your Olympic dream come true.” But with people still falling ill and dying each day from the coronavirus, there’s a particular urgency to the questions about whether the Olympic flame can burn away the fear or provide a measure of catharsis — and even awe — after a year of suffering and uncertainty in Japan and around the world.
Outside, hundreds of curious Tokyo residents lined a barricade that separated them from those entering — but just barely: Some of those going in took selfies with the onlookers across the barricades, and there was an excited carnival feeling. Some pedestrians waved enthusiastically to approaching Olympic buses.Can the U.S.
Olympics often face opposition, but there’s also usually a pervasive feeling of national pride. Japan’s resentment centers on the belief that it was strong-armed into hosting — forced to pay billions and risk the health of a largely unvaccinated, deeply weary public — so the IOC can collect its billions in media revenue.
A once-in-a-century pandemic forces the postponement of the 2020 version of the Games. A fusillade of scandals unfolds. People in Japan, meanwhile, watch bewildered as an Olympics considered a bad idea by many scientists actually takes shape.
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