Opening Ceremony treadmill girl becomes instant meme, story, reaction

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are finally here.

A year later, with the Covid crisis and costs plummeting after their originally scheduled start, the Olympics finally kicked off with tennis superstar Naomi Osaka lighting the Olympic cauldron.

The internet was quick to compare it to Cathy Freeman’s iconic moment at the 2000 Olympic Games with Social networks explode because of popular choice.

While the Opening Ceremony itself lacked a key element with locked crowd of the 68,000 capacity of the National Stadium of Japan, as they will be for the entire Olympics in the context of Covid outbreak, the Olympics opened with a bleak but somewhat hopeful display of unity.

Although fans gathered outside the stadium and were heard chanting “Go to Hell, IOC”, inside the stadium, the ceremony honors needy workers and delivers on some iconic moments.

In fact, from the opening sequence of the night, an athlete runs on a treadmill, simulating the hardships of Covid when most of the world is separated by social distancing.

While there are other athletes exercising, it is the treadmill runner who captures the world’s attention after running for 15 minutes.

The runner-up was Arisa Tsubata, a Japanese martial artist and nurse who served on the front lines of the Covid-19 battle.

Tsubata won the Japanese national boxing championship in middleweight in 2019 and is trying to qualify for the Olympics in Tokyo.

But after quitting her job at a hospital in January, a grim change of fate ruined her Olympic dreams.

Due to the cancellation of the Asian qualifying tournament in June due to the pandemic, she was robbed of the opportunity to represent her country at the Olympics when the boxing tournament took away 53 of the world’s top boxers based on on ranking.

“I worked so hard for a year after the Olympics were postponed, and it’s frustrating that I don’t even have the right to compete.” Tsubata said via Reuters.

But her performance in the opening ceremony made the world gasp as she claimed more than some hearts watching the show.

While some viewers criticized the ceremony, which lasted more than four hours, it was an impressive feat under strange circumstances, including Opening Ceremony director Mr. ignore the old jokes about the Holocaust on the eve of the event.

But there are inspirational moments, including the Olympic rings made from the wood of the tree planted by athletes in 1964, the last time the Olympics were held in Tokyo.

And although the athletes entered the stadium without fanfare, many teams were still having fun with the night.

However, the Australian athletes had already left by the time Naomi Osaka lit the cauldron, with the first bus for athletes departing shortly after the team marched into the stadium.