No Result
View All Result
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
MM News
اردو
  • Home
  • Latest News
  • National
  • Dramas
  • Showbiz
    Minsa Malik

    Death threats to Alizeh Shah: Who is Minsa Malik?

    Rajab Butt

    Explicit videos of Rajab Butt’s close friends leak, stirring social media outrage

    TV Anchor

    Missing TV anchor’s car found in Diamer flood debris, search for family continues

    Sardaar Ji 3

    Celebrities gather to celebrate Hania Aamir’s blockbuster film success

    Netflix August 2025

    Here’s what’s coming to Netflix in August

    Honey Singh

    After their last hit, Honey Singh and Shehnaaz Gill to share screen again

  • Thought Box
  • Business
  • Opinions
  • Technology
  • The Other Side
MM News
  • Home
  • Latest News
  • National
  • Dramas
  • Showbiz
    Minsa Malik

    Death threats to Alizeh Shah: Who is Minsa Malik?

    Rajab Butt

    Explicit videos of Rajab Butt’s close friends leak, stirring social media outrage

    TV Anchor

    Missing TV anchor’s car found in Diamer flood debris, search for family continues

    Sardaar Ji 3

    Celebrities gather to celebrate Hania Aamir’s blockbuster film success

    Netflix August 2025

    Here’s what’s coming to Netflix in August

    Honey Singh

    After their last hit, Honey Singh and Shehnaaz Gill to share screen again

  • Thought Box
  • Business
  • Opinions
  • Technology
  • The Other Side
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
MM News
اردو
  • Latest
  • Showbiz
  • Thought Box
  • Business & Stock
  • Opinions
  • Technology
  • The Other Side-Pakistan
Home Uncategorized

Tennis star Osaka lights flame as COVID-hit Tokyo Olympics open

MM News Staff by MM News Staff
July 24, 2021
Naomi Osaka holds the Olympic torch after lighting the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony. Source: Reuters.

Naomi Osaka holds the Olympic torch after lighting the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony. Source: Reuters.

TOKYO: Japan’s global superstar Naomi Osaka lit the Olympic cauldron to mark the start of Tokyo 2020, in an opening ceremony overshadowed by a pandemic but defined by hope, tradition and gestures of diversity.

Postponed by a year due to the coronavirus, the Games are being held without spectators in a city under a COVID-induced state of emergency. Athletes, the vast majority wearing masks, paraded through an eerily silent National Stadium where flagbearers for the first time were both men and women.

In its journey through the stadium, the torch was passed from Olympic champions to baseball legends – one born in Taiwan – a doctor and a nurse, a Paralympian, and children from parts of Japan hit badly by the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011.

It was finally handed to Osaka, the 23-year-old four-time tennis grand slam champion whose background as the daughter of a Haitian man and Japanese woman reflects the changes and slowly growing diversity coming to an ethnically homogeneous country.

“Undoubtedly the greatest athletic achievement and honor I will ever have in my life,” Osaka wrote in a tweet. “I have no words to describe the feelings I have right now but I do know I am currently filled with gratefulness and thankfulness.”

Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, said in his opening speech addressing the athletes: “The lesson we learned is we need more solidarity – more solidarity among societies, and solidarity within societies.”

IOC President Thomas Bach looks toward Tokyo 2020 President Seiko Hashimoto while making a speech during the opening ceremony, Source: Reuters
IOC President Thomas Bach looks toward Tokyo 2020 President Seiko Hashimoto while making a speech during the opening ceremony, Source: Reuters

The shift towards greater inclusiveness has not come without stumbles. Tokyo 2020 has been hit by a string of scandals, including the exit of senior officials over derogatory comments. The ceremony was low-key, with fewer than 1,000 people in attendance, strict social distancing rules and signs calling on spectators to “be quiet around the venue.”

Opening with videos showing empty streets around the world and an athlete training alone in darkness, it also included drones hovering over Tokyo’s National Stadium in the shape of the Olympic logo morphing into planet earth and a global performance via videolink of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Imagine”.

“With the world in a tough situation because of the coronavirus pandemic, I would like to pay my respect and express my gratitude to medical workers and all those who are working hard every day to overcome the difficulties,” said local organising committee President Seiko Hashimoto.

The ceremony climaxed with a fusion of traditional kabuki theatre – with its elaborate makeup and costumes – and a jazz piano improvisation, on a stage topped with the cauldron for the Olympic flame.

At the parade, most countries were represented by both male and female flagbearers in an Olympic first, but not everybody stuck to pandemic protocols. In an awkward contrast to most other athletes, teams from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and Pakistan’s flagbearers paraded maskless.

Fireworks during the opening ceremony are seen above the Olympic Stadium. Source: Reuters.

The opening also featured fireworks in indigo and white, the colours of the Tokyo 2020 emblem, and gave a nod to Japanese tradition represented by giant wooden Olympic rings linked to the 1964 Games, which the city also hosted.

Some delegations enlivened the mood. Uganda, wearing bright traditional costumes, did a few measures of a dance, while Argentine athletes jumped up and down on entering. A moment of silence was held “for all those family and friends we have lost,” especially to COVID-19. The Israeli athletes slain at the 1972 Munich Games were also remembered.

Japanese Emperor Naruhito and Bach cheered on the athletes after bowing to each other before sitting down. “Today is a moment of hope. Yes, it is very different from what all of us imagined. But finally we are all here together,” said Bach. Unlike his grandfather who opened the 1964 Games with a Japanese word that means “congratulations,” Naruhito opted for a more neutral word in Japanese that is closer to “commemorate”.

The ceremony was marked by major absences, including former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who wooed the Games to Tokyo. Top sponsors also stayed away, highlighting strong opposition to the event within COVID-fatigued Japan.

Only a third of Japanese have had even one dose of vaccines, prompting worries the Games could become a super-spreader event. More than 100 people involved with the Olympics have already tested positive.

 

 

Tags: naomi osakaOlympicsTOKYO
ShareTweetSendShare
Previous Post

PM hints at referendum, says Kashmiris will decide their own destiny

Next Post

Biden approves $100 million emergency funds for Afghan refugees

Related Stories

Screen grab
Uncategorized

Viral video sparks outrage as Karachi traffic police ‘fine’ cyclist

July 26, 2025
Imran Khan during court appearance: Fie photo
Uncategorized

Imran Khan moves SC after bail rejection in May 9 cases

July 26, 2025
File
Uncategorized

Buildings constructed on nullahs to be sealed in THIS Pakistan city

July 25, 2025
c
Top News

Safar moon 2025 not sighted across Pakistan

July 25, 2025
Uncategorized

Four young sisters drown in creek in Balochistan’s Loralai

July 25, 2025
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (right) meets Dr Fouzia Siddiqui, sister of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, at the PM Office in Islamabad, on July 25, 2025. — APP
Top News

PM Sharif assures all possible support in Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s case

July 25, 2025
Online
Uncategorized

Son of rickshaw driver tops Punjab Matric exams in Arts group

July 25, 2025
File photo
Uncategorized

PTI leader Hammad Azhar decides to surrender before court

July 25, 2025
File photo
Uncategorized

PAF successfully completes rescue mission in GB after flash floods

July 25, 2025
Pic credit: DP
Uncategorized

Viral video: Revo overturns at Karachi’s Sea View

July 24, 2025
Next Post
US President Joe Biden meets with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the White House. Source: Reuters

Biden approves $100 million emergency funds for Afghan refugees

Trending Stories

Representational image
Top News

Curfew imposed in Bajaur as security forces launch targeted operation

by MM News Staff
July 29, 2025
Sidra Arab
Crime

Sidra Arab’s body exhumed: Torture and strangulation confirmed

by MM News Staff
July 29, 2025
file photo
Business & Stock

Chinese firms seek licenses to export donkey meat from Pakistan

by MM News Staff
July 29, 2025
Finance Minister
Business & Stock

Finance Minister Aurangzeb departs for US to finalize trade deal

by Albert Arooj Bhatti
July 29, 2025
Matric
National

How did a bank guard’s daughter secure third position in matric?

by MM News Staff
July 29, 2025

Opinion

nadeem moulvi
From Sects to Sunnah
July 15, 2025
- Nadeem Moulvi
Munir-Ahmed
Portugal and Pakistan: Building a Bilateral Bridge in a Fractured World
June 29, 2025
- Munir Ahmed
munir ahmed oped
A Peace Prize for Betrayals: Rethinking Pakistan’s Strategic Alliances
June 28, 2025
- Munir Ahmed
No posts found
See all

Weather Updates

file photo
Top News

NDMA issues alert for heavy rains, urban flooding in northern areas

by APP
July 28, 2025

A fresh spell of intense monsoon rains is forecast to hit northern Pakistan from...

Rescue personnel evacuate villagers by boat from a flooded village following heavy rains in the Taunsa district of Punjab on July 16, 2025. — AFP

Thousands displaced, crops destroyed as floods wreak havoc in Punjab

July 27, 2025
File photo

KP issues travel advisory amid monsoon showers

July 26, 2025
Image: file photo

Weather updates for Islamabad, other parts of country

July 26, 2025
See all

Prices

representative image
Business & Stock

Latest gold prices in Pakistan today- Tuesday 29 July 2025

by MM News Staff
July 29, 2025

The following are the latest gold prices in Pakistan on Tuesday, 29 July 2025....

Sugar

Govt takes major decision to tackle sugar crisis

July 28, 2025
representative image

Gold prices in Pakistan today- Monday 28 July 2025

July 28, 2025

Karachi residents pay the highest price for flour in Pakistan

July 27, 2025
See all

Transport News

Chakwal
Crime

Tragic bus crash in Chakwal: 6 dead, 24 injured near Dhok Sial

by MM News Staff
July 27, 2025

A bus fell into a ravine near Dhok Sial on the motorway in Chakwal,...

Charged Parking

Has the Sindh government put an end to parking fee extortion?

July 25, 2025

E-Taxi scheme launch date unveiled in Punjab

July 24, 2025
(File Photo)

Air Arabia Abu Dhabi expands operations in Pakistan with new Faisalabad, Multan flights

July 24, 2025
See all

MM Digital (Pvt.) Ltd.

MM News is a subsidiary of the MM Group of Companies. It was established in 2019 with the aim of providing people of Pakistan access to unbiased information. Contact Details: 03200201537

Quick Links

  • Home
  • Advertise
  • MM News Urdu
  • The Other Side-Pakistan
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

Top Pages

  • Latest News
  • Showbiz
  • OP-ED
  • Technology
No Result
View All Result
  • Latest News
  • Showbiz
  • Thought Box
  • Business
  • Opinions
  • Technology

© Copyright 2024 MMNews - All Rights Reserved.