One Month Out of Every 48 Ritual When Did the Olypics Start Again
Aug. 8, 2021, 9:22 a.one thousand. ET
The cauldron goes out, and the ceremony — like the Games — ends with an empty feeling.
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TOKYO — A about unusual Olympics concluded with a fitting closing anniversary: the usual speeches, performances, parades and tributes played in front of tens of thousands of empty seats.
For the by 2-plus weeks, the athletes performed, often at the top of their games, and records and hearts were cleaved. And on television around the world, it may not have looked and then unusual.
But on the ground there was an undeniable feeling of absence. An absenteeism of cheering fans in the seats, an absence of parents embracing their medal-winning children, an absence of the buzz that takes over Olympic cities, which makes taxi drivers, hotel clerks and other residents want to eagerly talk handball or table tennis with each other or a visitor from another country.
Save the masks on the participants, the endmost ceremony mostly avoided the coronavirus pandemic. I.O.C. President Thomas Bach did laud the athletes for providing "hope" during dark times.
But for the nearly part, the familiar elements played out as if nothing was different. Flags were raised and lowered, anthems were sung, speeches were made and the flame was doused with anybody playing their parts as if nothing were wrong, with the Olympic movement or the earth.
The entertainment included the familiar — dancers and jugglers. It included the representative — drumming on a huge taiko. And it had the unexpected — a ska ring. For pandemic-related reasons many segments that might usually have involved scores of costumed cavorters in the stadium were shown on video.
When the Olympic cauldron was extinguished, the organizers quickly moved to a highlight reel for the Paralympics, which begin on Aug. 24, and some fireworks.
As usual, there was a segment devoted to the side by side Olympics host. But this year, the video peek at Paris 2024 offered not but a sense of excitement about the next Games on the horizon. It also speculated that peradventure, merely perhaps, there will presently be a Games that will be nearly running and jumping rather than testing and quarantining.
Aug. viii, 2021, 9:21 a.k. ET
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Aug. 8, 2021, 9:19 a.m. ET
Four years ago, the Rio Games ended with a dance party on the floor of the stadium that went on for a while later on the cameras turned off. Now, people are filing out quickly to somber music like the end credits of a bloodshot film.
Aug. 8, 2021, 9:18 a.m. ET
Arigato, thank you, says the behemothic screen. The athletes stroll off in a straggling, haphazard finish to one of the strangest Olympics of the modern era.
Aug. viii, 2021, 9:14 a.yard. ET
The flame is extinguished with prayerful motions for those no longer with united states of america, an allusion, surely, to the price of this pandemic.
Aug. 8, 2021, 9:11 a.yard. ET
"Passing on a legacy to time to come generations" is the theme of this musical number. Nihon is a shrinking and aging country in which the regime has non been able to adequately convince women to raise the fertility charge per unit.
Aug. 8, 2021, 9:08 a.one thousand. ET
The applause to thank the volunteers was much more hearty than the applause for Bach'due south line: "We did information technology — together!"
Aug. viii, 2021, nine:08 a.1000. ET
"We did it," Bach said. In this pandemic era, that'southward an accomplishment.
Aug. 8, 2021, 9:06 a.k. ET
A success amid the pandemic? Depends on your perspective.
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In the run-up to and throughout the Games, organizers repeatedly touted the Games as "safe and secure," and described athletes and others within the Olympic bubble every bit the "nearly tested community almost anywhere in the world." Thomas Bach echoed that sentiment at the closing ceremony, making reference to the coronavirus pandemic and maxim that the athletes gave people hope.
All told, 436 people related to the Olympics — nearly two-thirds of whom were residents of Japan — tested positive for the virus since early July. According to the Tokyo organizing committee, only three of the Olympics-related patients ended up in the infirmary, and none of them needed intensive care and accept already been released.
Merely since the Games opened on July 23, daily cases outside the chimera in Tokyo accept more than tripled. The number of people requiring ventilators has started to taxation the city'due south medical system. Some experts take said that by hosting the Games, the organizers tacitly gave the general public the impression that things were normalizing and that information technology was acceptable to go out and engage in behaviors that might take led to the increase in infections, particularly every bit the vaccine rollout in Japan has been much slower than in other affluent nations.
Aug. eight, 2021, 9:04 a.yard. ET
Thomas Bach refers to the pandemic but tells the athletes that they gave millions hope. He also thank you the Japanese people, a bulk of whom did not desire the Olympics held hither.
Aug. viii, 2021, nine:04 a.chiliad. ET
Seiko Hashimoto, president of the Tokyo Olympic commission, giving thanks to everyone who helped make the Olympics a success and reminding everyone that Tokyo even so has its piece of work cutting out for information technology: the Paralympics is next.
Aug. 8, 2021, ix:03 a.yard. ET
During the opening ceremonies, in that location was no sign language interpreter projected on the jumbotrons. Subsequently an online backlash, this time there are interpreters while both Seiko Hashimoto and Thomas Bach accept spoken.
Aug. 8, 2021, nine:01 a.chiliad. ET
The Japanese culture that was missed in the opening ceremony is here at the closing.
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From taiko drumming and Harajuku street fashion to J-pop hits and Ainu dance, the endmost ceremony incorporated Japanese cultural touchstones that were almost entirely missing from the opening ceremony.
In some ways, this celebration of Nihon, on the last day of the Olympics, besides marked what was lacking from these Games: the intersection of whimsy and solemnity that makes Tokyo then special.
Nihon has a knack of taking traditions from exterior and making them its own, whether it'southward baseball or broiled goods. Add to that ancient community that thrived on an island chain that kept itself secluded for centuries.
Athletes and other members of Olympic squads were kept from Tokyo for fear of infecting a urban center grappling with record coronavirus cases. Off-white enough. At least with the closing ceremony, they got a hint, "chotto," every bit we say in Japanese, of Tokyo'southward magic.
Aug. eight, 2021, 9:01 a.thou. ET
In the days when Juan Antonio Samaranch was president of the Olympic Commission, tea-foliage readers would closely parse his comments: If he specifically called a Games the "best ever," it meant he liked it. If he merely said information technology was "a great Games" or somesuch, he was disappointed. Here'due south Thomas Bach to weigh in on a most unusual Games indeed.
Aug. eight, 2021, viii:57 a.m. ET
A moment of remembrance has a central omission.
Prototype
The moment of remembrance in the closing anniversary was commemorated by a dancer and a taiko drummer rather than the more conventional moment of silence. During the opening ceremony, Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, specifically honored athletes who had died in previous Olympics, including the Israeli athletes killed during a terrorist attack at the Munich Games in 1972.
A pointed omission in the endmost moment was whatever mention of the victims of the diminutive bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whose 76th anniversaries passed this week without any mention past the Olympic organizers. Civic leaders and survivors had appealed to Bach to observe a moment of silence on Aug. 6, the engagement of the U.Due south. dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. But the I.O.C. declined to do so, saying that it would not single out any particular country but would offer a moment of silence during the closing ceremony to cover all past tragedies.
Survivors were especially galled by this decision given that Bach had visited Hiroshima before the Games.
"At the Olympic Games, a festival for peace, there should be no objection for everybody involved to take a silent prayer for the many lives lost by the atomic bomb and the victims of war," said Toshiyuki Mamiki, interim chairman of the Nippon Confederation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Sufferers Arrangement.
"President Bach took the trouble to visit the diminutive bombed area of Hiroshima and saw the museum, to realize the disastrous consequences of nuclear weapons. Equally someone who has seen Hiroshima, I believe the to the lowest degree that can be done is to in some shape or grade, admit to the world what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
Aug. viii, 2021, 8:55 a.m. ET
The Paris 2024 handover section is pretty much all on video.
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Every closing ceremony also looks ahead, to the side by side Games in four, or in this case three years.
Later on a healthy dose of Japanese music and dance, Paris was given the floor for x minutes or then. Because bringing a host of performers from Paris to Tokyo would have been a daunting prospect, the presentation relied almost entirely on picture — an unusual move for the endmost anniversary.
Beginning came videos with the familiar romantic sights and rooftops of the city that take helped sell information technology as a site for honeymoons, school trips and major sporting events for generations.
France has never been afraid to utilize the Eiffel Tower for marketing purposes, and the testify ended with a segment from the famed monument with a auspicious crowd — packed uncomfortably close, peradventure — on the Champs de Mars.
And a jet flyover and suspension dancing, which will debut every bit a sport at the Paris Games.
Aug. viii, 2021, 8:fifty a.m. ET
The Olympics athletes who had to return home early from Tokyo are helping with the Olympics handover.
Aug. 8, 2021, eight:49 a.m. ET
France is definitely seeking the youth vote with this video.
Aug. viii, 2021, viii:45 a.m. ET
If I were younger it would be a life goal to play a saxophone in space.
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:47 a.m. ET
Enquire our friend Dodai Stewart — it'due south never likewise late!
Aug. viii, 2021, 8:43 a.grand. ET
The flute mutes the martial, rousing quality of La Marseillaise.
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:41 a.m. ET
I gauge Super Mario volition not be returning to hand over the Olympic flag. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appeared in Rio de Janeiro dressed as the video game character to take the flag back in 2016.
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:43 a.m. ET
That actually was the best moment of the 2016 closing ceremony for me.
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:48 a.g. ET
Information technology was. And an excellent example of one of the icons of Japanese soft ability that were puzzlingly absent from the opening ceremony.
Aug. viii, 2021, 8:39 a.grand. ET
Tomotaka Okamoto, a soprano who sung the Olympic anthem, has his astonishing pilus in the grey purplish color that is very popular in Harajuku salons these days. I think they call information technology "ash."
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:37 a.m. ET
Yuriko Koike, the Tokyo governor who happens to speak English and Arabic, is wearing a traditional kimono.
Aug. eight, 2021, 8:35 a.m. ET
Obon isn't a sad holiday. There'south an chemical element of celebration in the festivals that happen all across Nippon at this time of year, merely watching the Obon dance in this empty stadium is a stark reminder of the losses that the globe has experienced over the past year.
Aug. eight, 2021, 8:34 a.m. ET
The Canadians are gamely trying to replicate the bon odori moves.
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:33 a.m. ET
Modern enka, Japanese ballad music, was one of the soundtracks of the become-go 1980s, when Nihon was developing into the globe's 2nd-largest economy.
Aug. 8, 2021, eight:30 a.chiliad. ET
Nosotros're moving into some traditional trip the light fantastic. A nod to the Japanese festival of Obon, which is held each year in late summer to honor the spirits of the expressionless.
Aug. 8, 2021, eight:31 a.grand. ET
Obon starts on Friday.
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:29 a.m. ET
In a normal yr, people would be heading habitation around this time to spend fourth dimension with their families.
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:29 a.m. ET
The Akito bon odori dance reminds me of my babyhood visits to my grandmother and going to a local park for some dancing, water filled balloons and trying to capture a goldfish in a little plastic pool
Aug. viii, 2021, viii:25 a.m. ET
An interpretive dance representing the Ainu people takes middle stage. The Ainu are Japan'due south indigenous people and faced centuries of persecution. Only a handful of people who speak an Ainu language are left in the world.
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Aug. 8, 2021, 8:21 a.thousand. ET
If you striking the taiko wrong you can interruption your arm. Maybe it should be a new Olympic sport.
Aug. viii, 2021, 8:twenty a.grand. ET
OK, taiko was what was criminally missing from the opening ceremonies. There is null like these massive drums to become your claret moving.
Aug. viii, 2021, 8:18 a.thousand. ET
The volunteers got some actually weird jobs.
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At every Olympics, thousands of volunteers serve every bit the glue that concord the Games together, driving official vehicles, fetching h2o, carrying Olympic medals. This time in Tokyo, they were also amongst the most visible and plentiful presence in the venues that were shorn of spectators.
Their tasks were myriad: wiping perspiration from table tennis tables, fetching soccer balls kicked over the goal into empty stadium seats, sweeping the gym flooring during basketball game games.
Sumika Yoneda, 22, who was responsible for leading press photographers into the and then-called moat of the National Stadium for athletics events, was shocked by how fast the photographers would run to become a picture when an athlete vicious on the rails. "It was so surprising to me at first, thinking about the athletes' feelings," said Yoneda, who was on duty at the closing ceremony. "That'due south non the first affair I would do, merely I approximate that'southward the task of a photographer."
Journalists in general seemed to surprise the sensibilities of the volunteers. Journalists "are very stiff minded," said Rachel Leng, 31. They "are very creative with trying to sneak into the media seats even if they don't have the proper ticket — they'll try to hide their badges, or some volition come in in one case and then leave and give their credential to a colleague that doesn't take the right to exist in the space and endeavour to pass it off as themselves, it's been a mess!"
Aug. 8, 2021, eight:17 a.g. ET
Now a tribute to the thousands of Olympic volunteers. certainly appropriate given how hard they work, often at thankless tasks. On the other hand, at that place is the thorny question of why an organization like the I.O.C., which is swimming in goggle box money, relies on unpaid labor at all.
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:15 a.1000. ET
Whenever an agenda says "the adjacent protocol element is ..." you know you may not exist in for riveting stuff. It turns out we're going to be introduced to some new members of the athletes' committee of the I.O.C.
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:xvi a.m. ET
Nosotros'll see in nearly 13 hours, simply this is generally a moment when broadcasters say, "And we'll exist right back."
Aug. viii, 2021, eight:eleven a.k. ET
One of the loveliest moments of the Olympics was when marathon silver medalist Abdi Nageeye waved his friend and bronze medalist Bashir Abdi to the finish line.
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:08 a.m. ET
San Marino and Burkina Faso, welcome to the medal lath.
As the medalists for the men's and women's marathons are honored, it'southward worth noting that several countries scored their get-go medals at these Games. The Philippines won its commencement gold medal, courtesy of Hidilyn Diaz in women'south weight lifting. San Marino won non only its showtime but also its 2d medal, inbound the history books as the smallest land to score a podium finish. Bermuda struck aureate in the women's triathlon, making it the smallest nation to win aureate in the Summer Games.
Burkina Faso won its first medal, bronze in men'southward triple jump. Turkmenistan as well gained its first medal, silver in women'south weight lifting.
"It'due south unbelievable," Diaz, the Philippine lifter, said later her surprise triumph in the 55 kilogram weight lifting sectionalization. "I never idea this would happen today."
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:05 a.m. ET
Kenya, like other parts of Africa and Asia, is suffering from a devastating wave of coronavirus cases. One wonders what some of these athletes volition face when they return home.
Aug. 8, 2021, viii:04 a.m. ET
Molly Seidel was a surprise medalist to some. She looks suitably thrilled.
Aug. 8, 2021, 8:01 a.yard. ET
The pinnacle marathon finishers traditionally get their medals awarded as part of the endmost ceremony. In the by it has just been the men'southward marathon, merely the women become to be office of the prove besides this year.
So hither's to Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, Abdi Nageeye of the netherlands, Bashir Abdi of Belgium. And Peres Jepchirchir and Brigid Kosgei of Kenya and Molly Seidel of the United states.
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Aug. 8, 2021, 7:59 a.k. ET
Anthem time! All rise for Greece, the founder of the Games, mode back in 776 B.C. (and over again in 1896 A.D.).
Aug. eight, 2021, seven:58 a.m. ET
It'due south hard not to feel wistful that nearly of the Olympic visitors did not get to come across this side of Tokyo in existent life. And the thousands of people who wanted to be hither to see it, merely could non.
Aug. viii, 2021, 7:56 a.m. ET
Now, about those park scenes…
Paradigm
Olympics Stadium is merely a short walk from Tokyo's Yoyogi Park, a massive green infinite in the city center famous for its people watching opportunities. Despite the pandemic and the savage summer heat, it has been full with its usual characters — east.one thousand. a rockabilly dance troupe that appears every weekend — and a steady stream of Tokyoites engaged in typical park activities from jogging and picnicking to yoga and impromptu musical performances.
Merely coronavirus restrictions have stopped athletes from visiting the park or any of the urban center's other famous tourist destinations. To brand upwardly for the missed opportunity, organizers have created a fake park inside the stadium, complete with simulated grass, soothing light effects and buskers. The organizers said that the setup is intended to give athletes a sense of taste of the city that they never got to experience: "Merely like a Sunday afternoon at a park in Tokyo."
Not quite: park goers were dressed in pastel ponchos and a ska band blasted out a brassy soundtrack every bit athletes milled effectually the field taking selfies. But for most of the participants in this twelvemonth'south Olympics, this ersatz park will be the closest they get to experiencing the real thing. The rules require they head dwelling house 48 hours after their event ends, and there are no opportunities for tourism.
There accept been a handful of exceptions, though: two Georgian athletes had their credentials revoked after Japanese media reported that they had been seen taking photos at Tokyo Tower. They had already finished their event.
Aug. eight, 2021, vii:55 a.m. ET
Hearing Milet sing "Hymne à fifty'amour" is making me long to get back to a pocket-size Tokyo jazz bar with some live music.
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Aug. 8, 2021, vii:55 a.m. ET
A reminder that Nippon is also a syrupy ballad capital letter. With a proper dorsum beat out.
Aug. 8, 2021, vii:58 a.m. ET
Hannah -- indeed. And they love former jazz standards sung in a torchy way.
Aug. viii, 2021, viii:01 a.m. ET
Motoko, absolutely truthful. What makes Tokyo so special is the serendipity of the streets, i moment all neon and noise, the side by side moment hushful and reverential at a shrine or perfectly shaped topiary.
Aug. viii, 2021, 8:01 a.thousand. ET
Even through the pandemic, Tokyo has been incredible. Information technology's a shame it wasn't given more than of an opportunity to share itself with the world.
Aug. 8, 2021, 7:54 a.k. ET
That brief interlude from DJ Matsunaga was awesome. He plainly won the world'south biggest DJ competition in London in 2019.
Aug. 8, 2021, seven:54 a.m. ET
And a great reminder of how popular turntablism is in Japan (similar so many countries). I promise the French organizers are taking cues from this…
Aug. 8, 2021, seven:48 a.k. ET
The Olympic rings floating above the stadium were purely special furnishings for Goggle box.
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How may different means can the Olympic rings be displayed? Let's see, you could do it with flame, luminescent shapes, costumed performers, fireworks … yeah those accept all been done. With the Games coming every two years (uh, usually), original ideas must exist hard to come up up with.
The pick this time is forming the rings with tiny points of lite. Except, the effect is merely visible on Idiot box screens. Information technology'due south completely special furnishings magic. In the stadium, athletes and onlookers run across nothing. Difficult to imagine the organizers trying that at a normal Olympics with paying spectators in the stands.
Aug. eight, 2021, 7:38 a.m. ET
The medals and costumes are another reminder that recycling is an fine art in Japan.
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Japanese Olympic officials boasted that the medals handed out at the Games were made from recycled materials harvested from used cellphones and other electronic devices. Recycling is a complicated art in Japan, with apartment buildings oftentimes requiring residents to separate their trash into tens of bins. Used batteries here, the Styrofoam that electronics came in at that place.
While a lack of tourists and a coronavirus state of emergency has express the rubbish produced during the Games, Japan is ordinarily a prodigious producer of trash: miles of wrappers from ubiquitous convenience stores, acres of wrapping paper from a gift-giving civilisation.
At least the state is committed to cleanliness. Japanese tend not to leave rubbish in stadiums. They selection up after themselves and even after others. Not that much tidying is needed at the Olympic Stadium tonight. At that place are almost no spectators here.
Aug. 8, 2021, seven:09 a.m. ET
The Takarazuka Revue, a troupe of all women, performs the Japanese anthem.
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The Tokyo Olympics have stressed gender disinterestedness, even if Japan lags nigh other developed nations in terms of women in the workplace. Peradventure in a nod to female empowerment, the all-women Takarazuka Revue musical theater troupe performed the Japanese national anthem.
Takarazuka was founded early last century past a Tokyo industrialist. Unlike Kabuki, the dramatic class in which men perform both male and female roles, Takarazuka doles out all roles to women. But critics say that the business aspects of the troupe are notwithstanding controlled by men. Last twelvemonth, the feeder school for Takarazuka stopped a system in which younger students had to pay obeisance to older ones past bowing at trains they had boarded or refrain from maxim annihilation to them other than the briefest of responses. In recent years, educational reformers have tried to gainsay the pervasive bullying culture in Japanese schools.
Aug. 8, 2021, 7:08 a.1000. ET
The appearance of Japan's Cocky-Defense Force is certain to be noticed abroad.
The prominent appearance of Japan's Self-Defence force Forcefulness at the closing ceremony, as well as during medal ceremonies, will surely exist noticed by Japan's neighbors, who bore the brunt of the Imperial Army'southward march across Asia during the last century. Nihon occupied vast parts of the continent, conducted biological warfare experiments on civilians and forced women into sexual slavery.
The postwar Japanese Constitution, generally drafted by the occupying Americans, prevents the country from having an offensive ground forces. Instead, Nihon has a Self-Defense force that is largely prevented from combat operations. (Security legislation passed in 2015 by the conservative government permit the Japanese forces to participate in U.N. peacekeeping missions and to requite limited armed backup to allies similar the United States.) Conservatives, including the government that won the Tokyo Olympic bid, accept been pushing to normalize the military, arguing that, 76 years after the war, information technology's time to move on.
The role that the Cocky-Defense force Force has played in the Tokyo Olympics contrasts somewhat with the ideal of peace that has been trumpeted at the Games. At the opening anniversary, newspaper doves fluttered from the sky. Japan will mark the anniversary of the American diminutive bombing of Nagasaki one day after the Olympics end.
Aug. 8, 2021, 6:33 a.m. ET
Some things most this ceremony volition clearly exist different.
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Like at the opening ceremony, and just about every athletic event at the Tokyo Games, at that place volition exist no fans on hand, although news media members and various bigwigs will exist allowed within. The feeling for those at the opening ceremony was, at least in role, inescapably melancholy, and it volition be difficult to shake that sensation no matter how much razzmatazz is on offer.
There may not be the typical type of prove that you might call "hundreds of people pour onto the floor of the stadium and form themselves into shapes." The opening anniversary was definitely dialed-down in terms of the sheer mass of participants.
The viewing experience may be dissimilar for many Americans, likewise, since those who desire to picket alive will need to stream the issue rather than melody into NBC right away (the broadcast network volition carry the outcome on a tape delayed basis at 8 p.m. Eastern fourth dimension).
Aug. eight, 2021, six:00 a.m. ET
Paris, as host of the 2024 Games, volition get its ain special showcase.
Epitome
The next host always gets near 10 minutes to put on a mini-prove of its ain. Then Paris volition get a plough ahead of the 2024 Summer Games.
At the Rio de Janeiro ceremony in 2016, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan turned up dressed as Super Mario from the honey Nintendo video game franchise. At the Pyeongchang Games in 2018, Beijing, as host of the adjacent Winter Games in 2022, offered pandas. Perchance can-can girls and an Edith Piaf number this time around?
Aug. eight, 2021, 5:28 a.m. ET
The final medal anniversary will exist held and the flame volition be extinguished.
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At that place is usually a medal ceremony held at the closing ceremony, typically the men'south marathon, which was held early Sun morn in Sapporo. Olympic officials have not announced which competitors will have their medal ceremony in Olympic Stadium during the ceremony.
There will too be numerous tributes. In Sochi, Russian authors were honored. In Rio, it was lace-making that was saluted.. What will Tokyo offer?
In terms of anthems, we could very well become the anthems of Nippon, French republic and Greece (the birthplace of the Games), too every bit the anthem of the country of the golden medal winner who is honored. They will probably also play the "Olympic anthem," and urge those in the stadium to stand, just as if the Olympics were an actual country.
In a central moment, the Olympic flame will go out. It usually happens with solemn music. Then the long wait until the side by side Games will brainstorm. Er, in six months in Beijing.
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/08/sports/closing-ceremony-olympics-tokyo
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