• Opening A sober ceremony, with protests outside the stadium

  • Album The best images of the inauguration

  • Cycling The positive of an auxiliary makes Spain tremble

  • A viral standard-bearer "I said no to Hollywood"

A very white girl with very straight hair, in some manga drawings with

Kei Nishikori

. Anyone who did not know it was impossible to guess who was the protagonist of that 2019 advertising campaign by Nissin, the Japanese company that invented instant noodles. He was a tennis player, supposedly because of the racket, but ... What tennis player? ¿

Simona Halep

? ¿

Ashleigh Barty

? Actually it was

Naomi Osaka

, black with curly curly hair, who had signed a good contract with the company, but apparently did not have an appropriate image for the public in her country.

"I think it was ignorance, it was not a question of hatred. Sometimes things like this happen in Japan," he justified last year in an interview with

Wall Street Journal Magazine

, where he revealed other similar episodes. The day that two Japanese tennis players criticized her to her face because they thought she did not speak Japanese or the many times she has gone to a restaurant in Tokyo and they have handed her a menu in English. "I would like to serve as an example for all those Japanese people who have my skin color and live in Japan," he stated on that occasion, in a claim that this Friday became big, giant, with a gesture. Osaka, with long pink braids, a look far removed from Japanese traditionalism, lit the cauldron of the Tokyo Games and began to change her country.

As happened at the Sydney 2000 Games with the aboriginal

Cathy Freeman

, the Olympic fire spread a message: we must end racism in the country. From a Japanese mother and a Haitian father, born in Osaka, but moved to the United States when she was three years old, Naomi had always felt a stranger in her birthplace and she confessed so not so long ago. "I think there are people in Japan who think I'm not Japanese and it shouldn't be like that," she said with the Games marked in red for a reason discovered this Friday. Her appearance at the Olympic Stadium, and even more so the achievement of a medal, will serve to elevate her to the altars of Japanese sport, where she was still doubted, and to make visible the existence of Japanese blacks, although surely more would be needed for this.

1.7% of the population

Closed to foreigners for decades, for centuries, Japan barely has a population of foreign descent, only 1.7% of the census, so social acceptance is complicated.

"Most of my compatriots do not have direct experience with blacks, for example. The image of them in the country comes from the media, from soap operas, from movies, perhaps from famous Africans or from comedians who imitate stereotypes. It is an image that is not corrected over time and that ends up influencing society, "explained

Yasuko Takezawa

, professor at the Humanities Research Institute at Kyoto University, in a BBC report.

Before Osaka's stardom, some other celebrities in the country, such as

Ariana Miyamoto

, winner of Miss Universe Japan 2015, had already tried to educate the country in this area, always without success.

That is Osaka's challenge off the slopes, with a breakthrough at the opening, and another will be in the competition itself, where she debuts this Sunday (04:00 hours) against China's

Zheng Saisai

.

Since he left Paris due to "mental health" he has not played again and it is difficult to know in what state he will arrive: after the Australian Open his performance drop was notable, with early defeats in Madrid or Rome.

No interviews

"It's okay not to be well," he confessed to

Time

magazine

this week, on his return to the media, prior to his return, possibly, to press conferences. In Tokyo he has not yet conceded any, but after his role in the inauguration he should do so this Saturday. Perhaps then he will speak of his experience and the difficulty of being black in Japan. Maybe I'll talk then about how to change a country with the Olympic fire.

Before it does, this Saturday, several players called to be protagonists will debut in the Olympic tournament.

Novak Djokovic

, favorite for gold in the men's tournament, will face Bolivian

Hugo Dellien

at the last minute (around 11:00 am)

and the majority of Spaniards will also take to the field.

Pablo Carreño

will face

Tennys Sandgren from the United States

(11.00 am),

Alejandro Davidovich

will face the Portuguese

Pedro Sousa

(04.00 am) and, among others,

Paula Badosa

will face

Kristina Mladenovic

(06.00 am).

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Tennis JJOO

  • sports

Tokyo Olympics Djokovic will play the Olympics: a clear path without Nadal, Federer, Thiem, Kyrgios ...

TennisFederer resigns from Games due to new knee problems

Tokyo GamesSimone Biles is looking for a partner, Djokovic and Pogacar extend their challenges to the Games and the pool awaits Dressel

See links of interest

  • Last News

  • Tokyo 2021

  • 2021 business calendar

  • Home THE WORLD TODAY

  • Master investigative journalism