Sue Bird, who is taking part in her fifth Olympics, and Olympic speed skater-turned-baseball player Eddy Alvarez. For the first time in the history of the Summer Olympics, the opening ceremony took place outside of a stadium. The opening ceremony was Osaka's first major public appearance in nearly two months after she withdrew from the French Open following the first round to take a mental health break. At least one large delegation decided to skip the opening ceremony, only sending its flag bearers and two other representatives. In a shift for this Olympics, two flag bearers are allowed to represent each country - one male athlete and one female athlete. Women's basketball star Sue Bird and baseball player Eddy Alvarez were chosen to be the flag bearers for Team USA and lead America in the Parade of Nations. USA Network will air 40.5 hours of curling and hockey, with almost all of it aired live. Team USA expected approximately 200 of its athletes to march in the Opening Ceremony - about a third of the total group.

At the Opening Ceremony, nations march according to alphabetical order in Japanese, following the custom banners for events of using the host country’s language to determine the order. A lone athlete runs during the opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium on Friday in Tokyo. The spectator ban was announced by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and agreed to by Japanese Olympic organizers, the International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee, and the metropolitan government of Tokyo. The job of prime minister alternated between Charilaos Trikoupis and Theodoros Deligiannis frequently during the last years of the 19th century. Fans are banned from Tokyo-area stadiums and arenas after the Japanese government put the capital under a COVID-19 state of emergency that will last through Aug. 22 because of rising new infections and the highly contagious delta variant. Earlier in the day, Pence met with North Korean defectors and Fred Warmbier - the father of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died last year after being imprisoned in North Korea.

Minutes into the ceremony, as children skipped through a mythical landscape, Moon greeted Kim Yo Jong and North Korea’s 90-year-old ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam, the head of the North’s Olympic delegation. The Opening Ceremony, a dazzling four-hour broadcast spectacle despite a year-long pandemic delay, was televised and streamed live from Tokyo early Friday with a scheduled replay during primetime on NBC. When is the Opening Ceremony? With the long-awaited Opening Ceremony marking the start of the summer games (on NBC and streaming live here), there is already plenty of action at the Tokyo Olympics. Greece is always the first nation to start the "parade of nations" in the Olympic opening ceremony as an ode to the country that created the Games. "Many people were looking forward to watching the games at the venues, but I would like everyone to fully enjoy watching the games on TV at home," Tokyo Gov. He thanked the Japanese people for allowing the Games to happen. And the oiled-up flag bearer from Tonga, Pita Taufatofua, is back for his third consecutive Games.

The U.S. flag bearers were U.S. For example, Afghanistan's flag bearers wore intricately embroidered clothing; Ghana's team had on crisp white suits with colorful patterned accents. The U.S. women’s softball team won their opening match against Italy, while the women’s soccer team was stunned by Sweden, suffering a 3-0 defeat and snapping a 44-match unbeaten streak. Well, with Japanese-born tennis superstar Naomi Osaka holding the flame and lighting the cauldron, today’s opening ceremony of the coronavirus hobbled Games of the XXXII Olympiad live from the island nation provided an answer to that query - and it was ultimately neither engaging nor enjoyable. The Games were officially opened by President George W. Bush, who was standing among the US athletes (previous heads of state opened the Games from an official box), while the Olympic cauldron was lit by members of the gold medal-winning U.S. Representing Japan at the Tokyo Olympics, Osaka carried the torch up the stairs to the Olympic cauldron inspired by Mount Fuji. Japan is the parade’s grand finale, and future Olympic host countries march just before the host nation.