The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will kick off Friday with Japan’s Emperor Naruhito declaring the Games opened at a ceremony at 8 PM local time\/7 AM ET (Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of US East Coast) largely behind closed doors. <\/p>\n
Besides the athletes and officials, the grand opening ceremony will only be watched by about 950 people in the mammoth New National Stadium, in order to minimize pandemic-related risks.<\/p>\n
The spectators are confined to a group of diplomats, foreign dignitaries, Olympic sponsors and members of the International Olympic Committee. They include U.S. First Lady Jill Biden, who is already in Tokyo leading a two-member U.S. delegation. <\/p>\n
Competitions got underway two days ahead of the official inauguration in football and softball.<\/p>\n
For the first time in its history, the Games will be held without public spectators at the venue. <\/p>\n
Tokyo is under a State of emergency amid a surge in Covid cases in the capital. Spectators from overseas were already barred from attending Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
More than 11,000 athletes from 204 nations are taking part in the biggest sports event on earth, to be held from July 23 to August 8.<\/p>\n
The Olympic Games were originally scheduled to take place in 2020, but was delayed by a year due to the pandemic. But it will still be called “Tokyo 2020.”<\/p>\n
These games will see a whopping 339 events unfold across 33 sports, with karate, sport climbing, surfing, and skateboarding making their Olympic debut.<\/p>\n
A number of sports and events will take place at venues outside the Japanese capital.<\/p>\n
Competitions take place across 41 different venues, including the Japan National Stadium, Tokyo Stadium and the Yokohama Stadium.<\/p>\n
204 national Olympic committee teams and the IOC Refugee Olympic Team have sent their teams to Tokyo.<\/p>\n
The 2020 Games will mark the second time that Japan has hosted the Summer Olympic Games, the first being also in Tokyo in 1964.<\/p>\n
Until last minute, the Games was under the threat of being cancelled amid vehement local opposition and more participants testing positive in the Olympic village.<\/p>\n
In a gloomy development on the eve of the Games, the show director of the Opening Ceremony Kobayashi Kentaro was dismissed from his post after a joke he had made in the past about a painful historical event was brought to light.<\/p>\n
IOC Athletes’ Commission Chair Kirsty Coventry said that state-of-the-art audio effects will be used in all venues, broadcasting sounds from each sport from past Games to create the effect of spectators to inspire the athletes. <\/p>\n