Tokyo: The opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics took place on Friday in a nearly empty National Stadium after year-long pandemic postponement. It was followed by the parade of participating countries, which placed the foundation for speeches by International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Thomas Bach and Seiko Hashimoto, who is the chief of Tokyo Organising Committee.
A total of 19 Indian athletes, including flag-bearers iconic boxer M C Mary Kom and men’s hockey team captain Manpreet Singh, besides six officials, participated in the ceremony. The country has a 228-strong delegation in Tokyo, including over 120 athletes.
There was a lot of focus on unity in diversity, peace and solidarity during the ceremony, with the message ‘you may be apart, but not alone’, to the athletes who have for long trained in isolation because of the fear of contracting the COVID virus.
The theme of the ceremony was unitedly moving forward despite the challenges thrown at the world.
World No.1 Deepika Kumari was inconsistent but the male archers’ performance was simply underwhelming in the Olympics’ ranking rounds, prompting a rejig of India’s mixed pair combination on a topsy-turvy day at the Yumenoshima Park here on Friday.
The Indian men’s team of Atanu Das, Pravin Jadhav and Tarundeep Rai, however, did not post particularly impressive scores and just about managed to sneak into top 10 in the team rankings. Deepika slipped from fourth at the halfway mark to finish ninth with 663 points which was way below her best International ranking score of 686.