WEB DESK
Sports fans across the world are eagerly awaiting the start of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo from tomorrow Friday, after a year-long delay due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The mega quadrennial event will kick off with a highly-anticipated Opening Ceremony tomorrow from 4:30 pm Indian time.
However, the event to be held at the newly-built National Stadium in the Japanese capital, will be a scaled down and sobering affair amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The ceremony will have none of the usual splendour and grandiosity. It will be lacking the mass choreography, the huge props and the cornucopia of dancers, actors and lights associated with an Olympic Games opening ceremony.
Long-time opening ceremony executive producer, Marco Balich, said that the opening ceremony of Summer Games will be a sobering show in Tokyo and will feature beautiful Japanese aesthetics. He said, the event will be very Japanese but also in sync with the sentiment of today, the reality.
Rising COVID-19 cases in Tokyo have cast a large shadow over an event that had already been postponed last year because of the pandemic. Japan had announced that the participants will be competing in empty venues so that the health risks amid the COVID-19 pandemic can be minimised.
Fans will see a much smaller team parade taking place in an almost empty Tokyo Olympic stadium. Deputy chef-de-mission Prem Kumar Verma said that only six officials from every country are allowed at the ceremony although there is no cap on athletes.