Tokyo Diary: Finally, the five-year wait comes to an end

P R Sreejesh from Tokyo Games Village

'Tokyo e youkoso!' Wherever you go in Tokyo, you will be greeted with these three words by a smiling cast of volunteers. In Japanese, yokoso is the welcome you receive while arriving in a new place. 'Tokyo e youkoso' simply means 'Welcome to Tokyo'. As Tokyo is all set for the Opening Ceremony of the 2020 Olympics, the whole of Japan is welcoming the world to its capital. The opening ceremony at the National Stadium will begin at 8 pm local time or 4.30 pm Indian Standard Time. 

The pomp and fanfare that we witnessed in London and Rio will be missing in Tokyo as the opening of the ultimate celebration of sport will be a low-key affair this time around due to the global pandemic. A five-year wait will come to an end today, but it is disheartening that we will not be able to celebrate the Games with full vigour. Due to coronavirus-induced restrictions, only 20 thletes from India are allowed to take part in the Opening Ceremony. As we have a match tomorrow, hockey players are not attending the function. Shooters, shuttlers, archers and members of the tennis squad will also stay away. However, hockey team captain Manpreet Singh will be there as one of the country's flagbearers at the ceremony. He will be accompanied by boxing legend M C Mary Kom. The sequence of march past will be as per the Japanese alphabet and India has been designated serial number 21.

Organisers have not yet revealed who will light the Olympic cauldron. There are some names doing the rounds that include  Japanese icons from the fields of baseball, judo, swimming, and wrestling. However, rumours are rife inside the Games Village that the final torchbearer will be Japanese tennis sensation Naomi Osaka. A true champion for tennis and human rights, she will be the right choice to lit the cauldron at the Tokyo Games. 

Typically it will be a famous athlete, or athletes, from the host country. However, it will not be surprising if Japan decides to choose a non-athlete to light the cauldron. If that happens, it could well be a person who survived the twin disasters in 2011 that shook the country: the tsunami and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Remember, when Japan hosted the Olympics for the first time in 1964, they gave the honour of lighting the cauldron to such a person. It was Yoshinori Sakai, a nineteen-year-old who was born in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city, who lit the Olympic cauldron during the Opening Ceremony of the 1964 Games. 

Coming back to competitions, we will be playing our first match against New Zealand tomorrow morning. The women's hockey team will also be seen in action on Saturday. 

We are looking forward to celebrating the spirit of the Olympics and doing our best to make India proud!

(The writer is a member of the Indian hockey team)