Tokyo (AFP)

The opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics began Friday at 8:00 p.m. local time (11:00 GMT) and will officially kick off the 2020 Olympics, postponed for a year by the coronavirus pandemic and shaken by many storms .

This ceremony will last more than three hours with around 11:00 p.m. local time the official opening by the Emperor of Japan Naruhito, before the Olympic cauldron ignited around 11:30 p.m.

This kick-off marks above all, more than the beginning of two weeks of sporting exploits, the end of a long and trying marathon for the Japanese organizers who have been waiting for this moment since September 8, 2013 and the designation of Tokyo as a city. -host of the 2020 Olympics.

In the particular context of a world living under the threat of Covid-19, the event, the details of which are, as tradition dictates, will be "simpler and more sober", they simply warned.

There will be a parade of 206 delegations lined up behind, for the first time, two flag bearers, a woman and a man, but no crowd to applaud them in an Olympic Stadium in Tokyo which can normally accommodate 68,000 spectators.

These personalities and a few thousand privileged people will witness the conflagration of the cauldron with the lit flame on March 12, 2020 in Olympia, which traditionally marks the start of the Games.

- Olympic colors -

But, surprise, while the polls have been expressing their hostility to the Olympics for several months, the inhabitants of Tokyo gathered by the hundreds around the Olympic Stadium before the ceremony.

They saw the Blue Impulse air patrol fly over the Japanese capital and sketch the Olympic rings in the sky.

They then posed next to the Olympic rings, carved on the forecourt of the stadium: "I am delighted that the Games are starting, it is a source of pride for me", explained a resident of Tokyo.

# photo2

These Games, which almost did not take place, are definitely not a normal event in Olympic history.

To reassure Japanese public opinion, which overwhelmingly would have preferred a new postponement or the outright cancellation of this Olympic fortnight, the Japanese authorities have taken drastic measures: daily tests for athletes, wearing a mask compulsory for all , gatherings limited to the strict minimum in the Olympic Village, ban on relatives and families of foreign athletes from coming to Japan and, finally, unprecedented in the history of the Olympics, almost total absence of the public.

After spending 13 billion euros, including an additional cost of 2.3 billion due to the postponement and health measures, Tokyo is ready, but the megalopolis with 14 million inhabitants is subject to a state of health emergency, throughout the Olympic Games, which forces bars and restaurants to close at 8:00 p.m.

We are far from the overwhelming enthusiasm aroused by the designation of the Japanese capital as the host city of the XXXII Games in modern history on September 8, 2013. On television that day, a whole country was exulting.

Japan was then barely recovering from the triple disaster of March 11, 2011 (earthquake, tsunami, nuclear accident in Fukushima), which had left some 18,500 dead, and was delighted to organize the "Reconstruction Games".

# photo3

But the Covid-19, which killed 15,000 people in Japan, has profoundly changed the planet and given it.

- Scandals -

The organizers had to face their share of scandals, such as the resignation of the president of the organizing committee Yoshiro Mori last February for sexist remarks, or that of the artistic director of the opening ceremony on Thursday for a bad joke dating from him. over twenty years ago on the Holocaust.

In sporting terms, these Olympics are already historic, since, for the first time, there will be as many women as men to participate in the 339 events on the program, in the name of the gender balance dear to Thomas Bach, who also pushed for the inclusion of so-called "young and urban" sports, such as skateboarding, surfing, 3x3 basketball or even climbing.

# photo4

Among the 11,090 athletes registered in Tokyo, no sports icon of planetary dimension, apart from Novak Djokovic, but the American swimmers Caeleb Dressel and Katie Ledecky, their compatriot Simone Biles (gymnastics), engaged on all fronts in their sport, who can afford an impressive collection of titles and / or medals.

The hero of these Olympics could be a French colossus: in the land of judo, in the "temple" of Nippon Budokan, Teddy Riner can become on July 30, at the age of 32, the first triple Olympic champion in history in the category - queen of heavy.

© 2021 AFP