BOXERS Kellie Harrington and Brendan Irvine will be Ireland’s flag-bearers at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics which starts at noon Irish time today.
ll participating nations were asked to nominate a male and female athlete to carry the flag as part of the IOC’s gender-balance policy.
Speaking previously about her selection, Harrington, the 31-year-old from Portland Row in Dublin, said: “This means so much to me, to be able to represent not only myself as a person, but as a boxer, for boxing, for my family and for Ireland.
“It’s an amazing honour, there are so many athletes out here, and to be chosen as one of the flag-bearers is absolutely fantastic. I can’t believe it really.”
Ireland is sending its biggest ever team, with 116 athletes in 19 different sports, the first to ever exceed 100 qualifiers, and it is 50pc larger than the team that competed in Rio 2016.
In total, 11,500 athletes will take part in the Games.
Thy sky over the National Stadium in Tokyo exploded in indigo and white as fireworks marked the start of the opening ceremony for the Olympics, celebrating the world's best athletes set to compete amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Indigo and white are the colours of Tokyo's Olympic emblem.
The opening video featured at the stadium recapped Japan's path to the Games and the challenges the world has faced since the selection of the Japanese capital as host in 2013.
It showed how in 2020 the coronavirus struck, with lockdowns forcing the unprecedented postponement only four months before the Games were supposed to open, setting off a roller-coaster period of uncertainty and preparations in isolation for the athletes.
Some of them are expected to use the ceremony to make statements about equality and justice and several nations will be represented by a man and a woman after the organisers changed their rules to allow two flagbearers.
Shortly before the fireworks, the opening video turned into the live action shot of the stadium where a lone female athlete placed her hand on the ground over a single seed.
She then slowly stood up with her shadow stretching out in the shape of a seedling, underscoring the Games' theme of rebirth after the pandemic as well as Japan's reconstruction after the 2011 disasters.
In the segment highlighting the impact of the pandemic on the athletes and people around the world unable to see the Olympics in person, the organisers showed a lone female athlete, Japanese boxer nurse Arisa Tsubata running silently on a treadmill.
Dozens of dancers moved about while projection mappings showed connections between them, highlighting how people around the world, including the athletes, have formed fresh connections online during the lockdown.
Japanese Emperor Naruhito and International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach, both masked, entered the stadium and bowed to each other before sitting down socially distanced.
The Japanese flag was carried into the stadium by six people, one a rescue worker dressed in her gray uniform in contrast to the red and white uniforms sported by the others, who included former Olympians such as Sydney 2000 marathon winner Naoko Takahashi.
The opening is taking place without the usual mass choreography, huge props and cornucopia of dancers, actors and lights associated with past celebrations.
A vastly smaller number of athletes will march in the teams' parade, with many planning to fly in just before their competitions and leave shortly after to avoid infections.
Only 15 global leaders are in attendance, along with Emperor Naruhito, who will formally open the Games as his grandfather Hirohito did in 1964, and U.S. First Lady Jill Biden.
The ceremony is marked by high-profile absences, including former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who wooed the Games to Tokyo. A number of top sponsors and economic leaders will also stay away, highlighting strong opposition to the sporting extravaganza in COVID-fatigued Japan.
Hundreds of protesters carrying placards that read "Lives over Olympics" protested around the venue. The protesters, a mix of people in white surgical masks, yelled "Stop the Olympics" as they marched.
Only a third of the nation have had even one dose of vaccines, prompting worries the Games could become a super-spreader event. More than 100 people involved with the Olympics have already tested positive.
The Olympics have been hit by a string of scandals, including the exit of senior officials over derogatory comments about women, jokes about the Holocaust and bullying.
The Games run until Aug. 8.
The ceremony reflecting a Games like no other, walks a fine line between celebrating the feats of the world's best athletes while acknowledging the global hardship caused by the coronavirus.
Postponed for a year, organisers were forced to take the unprecedented step of holding the Games without fans as the pandemic continues to take lives around the world.
Regardless, it marks a coming together of the world, with an audience of hundreds of millions around the globe and at various stages of the pandemic expected to tune into together to watch the start of the greatest show in sport.
All 29 athletes in the Olympic refugee team will march behind the Olympic flag at the Tokyo Games opening ceremony on Friday, an organiser said, to represent the more than 82 million displaced people across the globe.
The International Olympic Committee unveiled its first refugee team at the Rio 2016 Olympics to raise awareness of the issue as hundreds of thousands of people poured into Europe from the Middle East and elsewhere escaping conflict and poverty.
Israeli Olympic team members killed by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Munich Olympics were remembered during the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony with a moment of silence, the first time this has happened.
The families of the 11 victims had long asked the International Olympic Committee to hold a minute's silence at a Games opening ceremony, but had until Friday been turned down.