Subtleties of the opening ceremony: Japanese alphabet, U.S. TV wishes and the Japanese emperor’s keyword

The Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony was Friday, but many still wonder why their country’s delegation paraded at the beginning if they always did so at the end, or why they paraded at the end if they always did so at the beginning. The answer lies in a series of Olympic subtleties, some of them novel.

That wave of confusion brought with it the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics.

International TV commentators took aim at Japan’s writing system. The ceremony showed a rather different order for the parade of athletes than usual. First came out, as usual, the founding nation of the modern Olympic Games, Greece, and last was Japan, as host but the nations in between appeared not in the usual alphabetical order, but in the order of the Japanese syllabary.

For example Iceland, Ireland and Azerbaijan are spelled with an “a” sound in Japanese, which puts them first. And while you might expect the U.S. team to have entered with set A, since in Japanese it begins with America, it appeared at the end of the procession. Why?

The gathering of athletes from more than 200 countries and regions from around the world inside the main Games venue is one of the most dazzling sights. Since the London 1908 Olympic Games, it has been traditional for each country and region to enter the stadium led by a flag bearer. Teams also wear their outfits to showcase a part of their culture.

But changes since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, when the Games began to become more commercialized events backed by broadcast rights fees and sponsorships, have led to more flamboyant performances at the opening ceremonies that attract more attention, said an article published by “The Mainichi.”

For broadcasters, the opening ceremonies are one of the main attractions of the Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says that since global distribution began with the Sydney 2000 Olympics, broadcasting fees and hours of sports shown have increased with each edition.

The Tokyo Games were promised to be scaled back after they were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. But the IOC did not allow changes to the opening ceremony. IOC president Thomas Bach called the opening ceremony a showcase for the host country that should remain the same. He also said no changes should be made to the athletes’ experience as they parade in the stadium.

“The Mainichi” claims that behind these statements is U.S. broadcaster NBC Universal Media. The company would have paid a total of $12 billion to broadcast the ten Olympic Games spanning from the Sochi 2014 Winter Games to the Brisbane 2032 Summer Games.

For the parade of athletes at the Tokyo ceremony, changes were made to make the host nation one of the last to appear. The order of the three finalists was the United States, scheduled to host Los Angeles 2028, France, which will be hosting Paris 2024, and this year, Japan. The presence at the end of future venues is a new feature of Tokyo 2020.

While the changes seem to show the direction to shine the spotlight on the host nations, the alterations apparently were the desire of U.S. broadcasters. There was concern that if the U.S. team came out too early, American viewers would change the channel, the Japanese media outlet noted.

The opening ceremony offered another distinctive detail: in officially opening them, Emperor Naruhito avoided talking about “celebrating” the Olympics.

The Japanese head of state used the word “commemorate” in order to “tone down the celebratory tone of the ceremony in light of the new coronavirus pandemic,” the “Yomiuri Shimbun” noted.