August 08, (THEWILL) – The closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics pulled the curtain on the global sports showpiece that endured a year of costly postponement, protests, criticism and worry about a pandemic that was still spreading to end on a resounding note.
The sceptics had a point given the prevalence of the coronavirus in Japan’s capital city of Tokyo and it was a wonder that it all held in the first place. The organisers insisted on keeping to the postponed schedule with the assurance of a safe Games.
Keeping to a strict protocol of health and safety regulations, they ran daily tests, kept track of event schedules and mastered the art of contact tracing to ensure that athletes could trust the safety of their health while focusing on delivering their best performances in their events.
That meant it was, as has been the tradition at the Summer Olympics, a tournament not lacking in record-breaking performances and memorable moments. In addition, there were some changes like in the medal ceremony where the athletes put the medals on their necks by themselves.
The medals table was awash with medals from the beginning. China stayed atop the table early and held on to their lead in the standings until the latter stages when Olympic topping favourites Team USA finally caught up with and replaced them to finish with 39 gold, 41 silver and 33 bronze medals.
Their tally of gold podium finishes gave the US the upper hand as closest rivals China was snapping at their heels to retake that top spot. The Chinese won 38 gold, 32 silver and 18 bronze medals to take an overall score of 88 medals, which was far below the impressive 113 overall of Team USA.
The medals Americans won in the last day of the competition such as Team USA’s first gold in the women’s track cycling which Jennifer Valente won, allowed the US to pull ahead of China and celebrate the closing ceremony as the overall champions of the sporting fiesta.
Understandably, the closing ceremony, often the more subdued of the two ceremonies, was not as showy an affair as the opening festivities, it was even more so at the year’s Games in Japan. This was because, as part of COVID-19 protocols, organisers had mandated athletes to leave Tokyo within 48 hours of their final event.
The consequence was that there were fewer athletes to parade into the stadium at the closing ceremony to show off their medals while acknowledging the cheers of a limited set of organisers, guests and handling crews.
The few who were available remained to take part in the ceremony in a nominal fashion and it dampened the entire mood all the more that many aspects of the closing-ceremony performance that might have been performed live were instead shown on video in the most unusual Olympics of all time.
The live feed displayed performances that included synchronised dancers, jugglers and drumming on massive taiko drums performing their routines. The Japanese superstar Milet performed “Hymne a l’amour”, the popular French song originally performed by Édith Piaf.
Keeping to the Olympics tradition of regaling spectators with the best technological capacities on offer by hosts at both the opening and closing ceremonies, Japan that had mesmerised the world with a hypnotic 1,824 drones display that formed a three-dimensional globe, took it a step further.
The organisers wowed those watching and closed out the Games by making the dazzling light display inside Japan’s National Stadium morph into the Olympic Rings in a beautiful array.
Furthermore, the light display was also part of the Games’ theme of “Moving Forward.” Each of the colours represented nations coming together, and each individual light stood for an athlete, or a “point of light” in the world, according to organisers.
With “arigato” displayed on the screen inside the stadium, Tokyo bid farewell to its Games with a massive fireworks show. The typography was actually the same as that which spelled out “sayonara” at the last Tokyo Games in 1964.
Aside the amazing and inspiring performances of the athletes, the Games will be remembered for the eerie feeling of the empty stands at the different event venues. It will not be immediately certain how that shaped the outcomes or what difference full or socially spaced crowds could have made.
As THEWILL reported, when Burkina Faso’s Hugues Fabrice Zango jumped a distance of of 17.47 metres to win his country’s first ever Olympics medal, a bronze in the men’s triple jump event on Thursday last week, he wished he had a crowd to celebrate the momentous occasion with.
Empty stands nonetheless, Japan wanted to stick as closely to its plan to show off its culture and technology on the world stage as possible while still following COVID-19 protocols and endeavoured to do so with the closing ceremony of the strangest Games ever.
Thomas Bach, the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was on hand to declare the Tokyo Games closed. Then, the Olympic flame, which had been burning inside the stadium since the opening ceremony, was extinguished to signal the completion of the affair.
The French city of lights, Paris, takes the baton for the next Summer Games, the 2024 Olympics after Tokyo completes its hosting of the Paralympics, which begins August 24.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
