Opening Ceremony Kicks Off Delayed Olympic Games
Athletes from around the world are gathered today to finally kick off the Olympics.
LEARN MORETennis Star Naomi Osaka Lights Cauldron To Open 2020 Tokyo Olympics
The four-time Grand Slam winner and second-ranked women's tennis player in the world will represent her home country of Japan at the games.
Tennis Star Naomi Osaka Lights Cauldron To Open 2020 Tokyo Olympics
Ashley Landis / AP
July 23, 2021
Naomi Osaka, the four-time tennis Grand Slam winner, lit the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics on Friday.
It was a choice that could be appreciated worldwide: in Japan, of course, the country where Osaka was born and the nation that she plays for; in embattled Haiti because that’s where her father is from; and surely in the United States, because that’s where the globe’s highest-earning female athlete lives and where she has been outspoken about racial injustice.
But she has often received an uncomfortable welcome in Japan because of her race, with her family having moved to the U.S. when she was 3.
Her emergence as a top tennis player has challenged public attitudes about identity in a homogeneous culture that is being pushed to change.
But there she was at the center of the stage when a staircase emerged, the cauldron opened atop a peak inspired by Mount Fuji and Osaka ascended with the Olympic and Japanese flags blowing in the breeze off to her left. She dipped the flame in, the cauldron ignited and fireworks filled the sky.
“Undoubtedly the greatest athletic achievement and honor I will ever have in my life,” Osaka wrote on Instagram next to a picture of her smiling while holding the flame. “I have no words to describe the feelings I have right now, but I do know I am currently filled with gratefulness and thankfulness.”
Osaka became the first tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron. She’s also one of the few active athletes to be given the honor.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press.
2:11
Revolutionary Olympian Dick Fosbury has died at age 76
Fosbury died over the weekend at age 76 from lymphoma. But the "Fosbury flop" lives on, practiced by high jump athletes around the world.
3:54
Can the Winter Olympics survive climate change?
The Winter Olympics have already been postponed due to climate change and lack of quality snow, leaving many to wonder how the Games will go on.
0:19
Athletes Force A Change In Ban Of Russians At Paralympics
The tipping point to the rapid turn of events Thursday was "a very, very volatile environment" in the athletes village in Beijing at the Paralympics.
Top Stories
Biden's Justice Dept. keeps hard line in death row cases
Death penalty opponents are frustrated Biden hasn't taken any steps to fulfill his campaign promise to end capital punishment at the federal level.
Jonathan Majors arrested on assault charge in New York
The star of recently-released "Creed III" and "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania," was involved in a domestic dispute involving a 30-year-old woman.
Daylight savings dispute leaves Lebanon with two time zones
Many Lebanese have found themselves in the position of juggling work and school schedules in different time zones.
