After 57 years, Japan is once again hosting the Olympic Games in the capital Tokyo.

The games began on Friday evening in a restrained ceremony in a stadium largely without spectators.

Emperor Naruhito opened the games with the prescribed opening formula.

He is said to be concerned because the games are being held in the middle of the corona pandemic, but he is not allowed to express himself politically.

In order to avoid the risk of infection, the organizers had excluded spectators from almost all competitions of the games.

Patrick Welter

Correspondent for business and politics in Japan, based in Tokyo.

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Apart from the occasional applause from employees of the organizing committee, only loud music and the announcements filled the stadium circuit.

The night wind blew through the airy stadium in the middle of the city, which had been heated up by a beautiful summer's day and, as planned by the architect Kengo Kuma, would have cooled the spectators if they had been allowed into the stadium.

The athletes were right at the center of the celebrations.

Around 6,000 athletes and supervisors took part in the opening ceremony.

Tennis star Naomi Osaka was allowed to light the fire shortly before midnight local time.

The organizing committee put the number of sports officials, sponsors and guests of honor at around 900. Around 3500 journalists were there.

President Emmanuel Macron represented France because Paris is hosting the 2024 Olympics.

Germany was not represented diplomatically in the stadium.

Virus emergency in Tokyo

Even the ambassador in Tokyo was not allowed to come for reasons of Covid protection.

Many tips from sponsoring companies had also canceled.

The President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, called the Games a sign of hope.

He especially thanked the hosts who had not canceled the games despite the pandemic.

Tokyo is currently in a virus emergency. The number of new infections is increasing, the seven-day incidence is almost 70 per 100,000 inhabitants. Medics warn that the fifth wave of the virus is in Japan. The residents of the city are required to stay at home in the evening from 8 p.m. if possible. Restaurants and bars then have to close and are not allowed to serve alcohol. At the end of the week, a financial market analyst titled a study: “A corona wave for every Olympic ring”. Japan as a whole had survived the pandemic so far with around 860,000 cases of infection and around 15,000 virus deaths better than many Western countries.

The approximately 5,700 athletes from 207 countries entered the stadium rather calmly and, according to the rules, all wore a face mask.

As they marched in, they heard popular melodies from video games, performed in orchestral form.

The German athletes came to Denmark and Togo according to the Japanese alphabet.

The German flag was carried jointly by beach volleyball player Laura Ludwig and diver Patrick Hausding.

In the spirit of gender equality and diversity, the IOC had for the first time allowed nations to have a flag bearer.

Many, but not all, countries made use of it.

Medals will be awarded in 33 sports during the Olympic Games.

Karate, whose origins can be traced back to Okinawa, will be there for the first time, as will surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing.

The Japanese had puzzled a lot about where the organizers wanted to light the Olympic flame in the new stadium, which is clad with lots of wood.

Architect Kuma hadn't planned a place for it.

But on the edge of the field a stage was set up for the Japanese and Olympic flags and for protocol purposes.

The stage was dominated by an octagonal mountain about ten meters high, which was supposed to remind of Japan's most famous mountain, Mount Fuji.

The sun ball on Mount Fuji was supposed to become the boiler for the Olympic flame, which is being fed with hydrogen for the first time in Tokyo, as a symbol for the ecological awareness of the Olympians.

Because the fire stage would interfere during the sports competitions, there will be a second Olympic flame on a pedestrian bridge on Tokyo's waterfront for the duration of the games.

At the opening ceremony, Japan presented itself as a modern country that is deeply rooted in tradition.

The show began with a dance scene that illustrated the lonely training of athletes in the pandemic, but at the same time the network of athletes and fans around the world.

“Together we are strong” was one of the themes of the show.

The singer Misia sang the Japanese national anthem Kimigayo in a way that Japanese traditionalists couldn't have liked.

A version of the peace hymn "Imagine" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, sung by video by international artists, was a must in Japan.

Unity in diversity is one of the themes of the game.

One of the most impressive scenes was the dance of death, which the dancer Mirai Moriyama performed in memory of the Covid dead and other deceased.

The lifeless and frozen face with which the 36-year-old Moriyama danced was reminiscent of the rigid faces of the survivors who stared at the ruins and the sea after the tsunami in the north-east of the country in March 2011.

Unintentionally, it was the strongest reminder that these Olympic Games were also intended by the host as a reconstruction game after the tsunami disaster - until the pandemic almost erased this reference.