Naomi Osaka, the tennis star and Japanese icon, carried the hopes and fears of the country with her as she lit the cauldron to mark the start of the Tokyo Olympic Games.
It took $37 billion, a bulldozing Olympic committee and a Japanese government resisting the will of its people, but on Friday the Tokyo Olympic stadium lit up in fireworks at last.
The opening ceremony started with a video showing the pure elation of Tokyo’s winning bid in 2013 and the momentum of the Games through until 2019 and the crushing blow of the pandemic, with the countdown finally culminating in the present day and fireworks – 694 of them – lighting up the sky. Often, the loud cheers from outside the stadium, whether from supporters or protesters, were louder than any noises from inside the cavernous bowl. A spectacular moment came when 1824 drones hovered above the stadium forming a single globe - it was impressive as a technical feat, even more so as a unifying message.
Four-time Olympians and Australian flag bearers, Patty Mills and Cate Campbell, led 63 Australian athletes into the Olympic Stadium in Chofu as the flame made its way to the cauldron.Credit:Earlier in the day, the Japanese Defence Force’s aerobatics team traced five Olympic rings in the sky; below them, the bars were closed and the restaurants dry.
Anti-Olympics protesters hold signs during a rally near the Tokyo Metropolitan Government complex where the final Olympic torch relay event took place in Tokyo on Friday.Outside the stadium, Japanese families, students and children were separated from the party their country was hosting by a four-metre barricade.
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