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Only 1,000 politicians attended the traditional event at the Olympic Stadium
When the opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is held in front of thousands of empty seats on Friday, one of the strangest Olympics in history will begin with an equally unusual start.
Only 1,000 politicians appeared in the 68,000-seat Olympic Stadium to participate in a traditional event, which is usually a celebration of the host country.
This time, after a year of delay in the pandemic, the Japanese public was largely shut out, distrusted the Olympics, and worried about the influx of foreign tourists.
The ceremony will be a low-key event to prevent crowding, and the national parade, the core of the performance featuring smiling and waving athletes, will be greatly reduced.
A glimpse of the rehearsal witnessed by the residents of Tokyo indicated that it was a high-tech performance including a drone display.
Emperor Naruhito of Japan will be the main figure among the distinguished guests, as well as some world leaders and senior figures, including the first lady of the United States Gil Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.
The preparations for Tokyo 2020 are difficult, and the opening ceremony is no exception. A series of personnel related to the show were fired.
Hiroshi Sasaki, the creative director of the opening and closing ceremonies, also resigned in March because he suggested that plus-size female comedians appear as pigs.
The focus of the ceremony is the lighting of the Olympic flame, which will end the torch relay that started 16 months ago and encountered several obstacles.
In March last year, after the flame was lit at an audience-less ceremony in Olympia, Greece, when the crowd was besieging Hollywood actor Gerald Butler in Sparta, the Greek part of the relay was cancelled.
When the Olympics were postponed, the torch hardly landed in Japan and was displayed throughout the country until the relay race restarted in March this year.
However, due to coronavirus concerns, almost half of the relay legs were removed from public roads or other changes were made. When it finally arrived in Tokyo this month, fans were turned away.
Japan’s concerns about the virus are still high, and as the Olympics finally begin, Tokyo is in a state of emergency.
The number of cases in the capital reached 1,832 on Wednesday, the highest level since January. According to Kyodo News, experts estimate that this number will jump to 2,600 in early August.
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