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Night view Tokyo. /CFP
The opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics was held at the National Stadium in Tokyo, Japan on Friday night.
A wooden Olympic logo was unveiled at the ceremony, fitting the green theme for the Games this year.
The 68,000-capacity venue was sparsely filled by merely 950 attendants with strict anti-COVID-19 measures in place. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the 2020 Games to be postponed by a year.
About 11,000 athletes from all over the world will be competing in 41 sports and 339 events at 42 venues. After a series of performances characterized by Japanese culture, delegations of participating teams began to enter the stadium.
As part of the Olympic tradition, the first delegation was from Greece, where the first edition of the Olympics was held.
The Chinese delegation was the 110th to enter the stadium, with women's volleyball ace Zhu Ting and men's Taekwondo world champion Zhao Shuai as the flag bearers. Zhu is now the country's first female flag bearer at the Summer Olympics.
China has sent 431 athletes, the most in history for overseas Olympic Games, to compete at a total of 225 events across 30 sports. Twenty four of them are already Olympic gold medalists, and 19 are reigning champions from 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.
The host country Japan and France, which will host the next Summer Olympics in 2024 in Paris, were the last and the second-last delegations respectively to enter the stadium.
After all the delegations had found their spots in the stadium, the Olympic motto "faster, higher and stronger" was projected on the ground, followed by the word "together," a new addition for this year.
Both Seiko Hashimoto, president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee, and Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), delivered speeches at the ceremony.
"After more than half a century, the Olympic Games have returned to Tokyo. Now we will do everything in our power to make this Games a source of pride for generations to come," said Hashimoto.
"Wherever in the world you may be, we are united in sharing this moment together. The Olympic flame makes this light shine brighter," said Bach.
After that, Japanese Emperor Naruhito declared the Tokyo Olympic Games open.
In the end, Japanese tennis ace Naomi Osaka, winner of four Grand Slam titles, lit the Olympic cauldron.
