Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games: opening ceremony – live updates!

The refugee team led out the parade

The refugee team opened the parade under the banner of the Paralympic symbols. There are six athletes in the team, including Parfait Hakizimana, who will compete in taekwondo – one of the new sports at the Paralympics in Tokyo.

Hakizimana has quite the backstory. The 33-year-old lives in the Mahama refugee camp in Rwanda, where he has been based since fleeing civil war in his native Burundi in 2015. After losing his arm at the age of eight, when he was shot during an attack in which his mother was killed, he later took up taekwondo and now competes internationally while also training around 150 refugee children living in the camp of around 60,000 people. Hakizimana, who will compete in the under-61kg category, has said: “Refugees don’t have a lot. But sport helps them forget their troubles.”

We’ve picked out a few of the global stars to watch in Tokyo:

There will also be some athletes missing from the Games.

Athletes from the Pacific Island nations of Samoa, Kiribati, Tonga and Vanuatu have been unable to travel due to coronavirus restrictions.

The two athletes representing Afghanistan, Zakia Khudadadi and Hossain Rasouli, have also been forced to withdraw after the collapse of the government and the return of the Taliban to power. However, their flag will be carried at the opening ceremony by a Games volunteer as a “mark of solidarity”.

North Korea pulled out of the Olympics and Paralympics a few months ago, citing concerns about coronavirus.

Now for some fun

The mood lifts and so does the tempo as volunteers in bright costumes dance their way through a colourful routine. It’s quite a sight. The performers are, apparently, invoking the Japanese tradition of karakuri.

The flag is raised as the national anthem of Japan plays.

The tone has been one of quiet reflection so far, which is fitting given what we have been through over the last 18 months and given the situation in Japan at the moment – as my colleague Justin McCurry has been reporting this week:

There will be a sense of the familiar when the Paralympics begin on Tuesday. Senior Games officials, including the International Paralympic Committee president, Andrew Parsons, and a returning Thomas Bach will witness the start of the second instalment of the most controversial Games in recent history. In his role as honorary patron, Emperor Naruhito will declare the event officially open at a near-empty national stadium in Tokyo.

But less than a month after the delayed 2020 Olympics ended in sporting success for the home country and repeated claims by government and organisers that they had passed off “safely and securely”, the Japan preparing to greet 4,400 Paralympians will be very different from the one that reluctantly welcomed the Olympic family in late July.

Then the narrative centred on the unknown: the number of Covid-19 cases among athletes and support staff; the reliability of the biosecure bubble that would confine most visitors to accommodations and venues for the 17 days of sport; the willingness of the Japanese public to set aside their opposition and embrace the athletes; and, crucially, the potential for the Olympics to leave rising cases, stretched medical services and more weeks of emergency restrictions in their wake.

We know now that hundreds of Covid-19 cases directly related to the Games did occur, although they appear to have been confined to the Olympic bubble. Demonstrators in the heavily policed streets outside the main stadium and other venues rubbed shoulders with residents who simply wanted to be present at events they had helped pay for but were banned from watching. Visitors recounted acts of kindness they had been shown by local people.

Now we will have a welcome from the hosts.

The national flag of Japan is brought out to the middle of the stadium and we are invited to consider the last year. Sombre piano music plays in the background.

It’s a poignant, respectful moment. The empty seats in the stadium add to the sense of loss.

The view from inside the Olympic Stadium.

The opening ceremony is just a few minutes away. Here are a few pics of the stadium as we get going in Tokyo. Not everyone is excited about the Games. There are protestors outside the venue.

Paralympics trivia

Inspired by Martin’s mention of dartchery, I’m wondering if anyone else has any great Paralympics trivia. If so, drop me an email to Paul.Campbell@theguardian.com.

Our daily Paralympics email

If you didn’t sign up for Martin Belam’s daily Olympics email, you missed out. But all is not lost. He is back for the Paralympics.

Martin distills the big stories of the day into one handy email, which also serves as a preview to the next day’s action. You can sign up here.

His daily briefing always contains a great fact about the Games. Yesterday he had this gem:

Ade Adepitan, who won a bronze medal at the Paralympics in Athens in 2004, is presenting Channel 4’s coverage of the opening ceremony today. He also wrote for us this week about the excitement and pressure athletes feel before the Games begin. I thought this line summed it up perfectly: “The whole cycle of the Games is like getting in your car and driving at 100 miles an hour every day.”

There’s still something inside me that knows it’s a Games year. Even though I last competed at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, it’s almost like my body has become attuned to being ready. You wake up and there’s this feeling: “Wow, I know something special is happening.” And that’s true even in this strange, fifth year of the cycle.

I have a sense of excitement as the Games approaches, but – fortunately – I don’t have any of the pressures; the pressures of qualifying for the Games and now of making sure you’re ready for them. It’s about this point in the buildup that athletes start to really worry. You’re trying to get your form right. But you’re also paranoid about getting injured, and about staying away from anyone who might have a cold. This year, of course, there is Covid to think of too. You catch that, you’re potentially out of the Games or even worse. I can’t imagine what it must be like getting ready for Tokyo right now, people must have wrapped themselves in cotton wool.

Coming out of the Olympics, one of the great things has been that athletes have finally been able to talk about the impact that these pressures have on their mental health. I don’t think the general public really understands that, the emotional turmoil that we feel. I think they love the idea that we are these indestructible beings who are able to cope with it all; do or die every four years. We go into the sport wanting to take that on, don’t get me wrong. We want to put ourselves in that position. But for us the whole cycle of the Games is like getting in your car and driving at 100 miles an hour every day.

How we reported the 1964 Paralympics in Tokyo.

This is not our first rodeo. The Guardian was at the Paralympic in Tokyo 57 years ago. On 4 November 1964 our reporter Jessica Young wrote about the various athletes taking part at the Paralympics in “Tokio”.

She spoke to Carole Tetley, a 21-year-old who had been a cycling champion until a crash left her paralysed from the waist. Tetley took up archery and table tennis instead and went on to represent her country at the Games. This is what Carole told our reporter: “I never thought I could get a thrill out of something as static as archery, but when I tried it I found I could do it. That was my first thrill. Now it’s fascinating just to sit there and go zing-zing-zing!”

We’ve dug up a few more of our reports from the 1964 event.

What we have in store over the next fortnight

My colleague Paul MacInnes, who is in Japan for the Games, has been writing about what we should expect from the Tokyo Paralympics.

“Any athlete you talk to, they have resilience,” said Shahrad Nasajpour during a press briefing in Tokyo on Monday. “Part of it comes from the athletic background, so any athlete you talk to they have it. But when you are a refugee athlete or Paralympian, which makes it even harder, the adversity behind makes you more perseverant in your life and in your career.”

Nasajpour, who has cerebral palsy, left his native Iran in 2015 and was granted asylum in the US. He was instrumental in setting up the Paralympic refugee team which competed for the first time in Rio in 2016, and indeed formed 50% of its number. Now, as part of a six-strong team, he will be competing in the F37 discus once again and when the Games get under way in Japan on Tuesday the resilience, perseverance and athletic talent that Nasajpour represents will be the qualities organisers hope to project to a watching world.

As with so much of Tokyo 2020, hope remains an operative word at the Paralympic Games. Covid case numbers continue to rise in both the capital and Japan more broadly, reaching record levels in the past week. There have been cases in the athletes’ village in recent days and four Pacific nations withdrew from competition after being unable to afford the quarantine in Australia en route.

There will be fewer spectators than at the Olympics, where fans were allowed to attend some venues outside Tokyo, though there are still plans to allow up to 140,000 schoolchildren to have access to events. The latest development is the suggestion that Paralympic venues could be transformed into emergency medical facilities once the Games have ended, a legacy very different from anything anticipated 18 months ago.

A few facts and figures about the next 13 days.

Tokyo is the first city to host two summer Paralympics, having also hosted the event in 1964 (the city also hosted the Winter Paralympics in 1998).

The Paralympics have transformed in the last 57 years. Back in 1964, there were 375 athletes from 21 nations competing in nine sports. This year there will be 4,500 athletes from 162 nations competing in 539 events across 22 sports.

Here are those 22 sports:

Archery
Athletics
Badminton
Boccia
Cycling
Equestrian
Five-a-side football
Goalball
Judo
Para-canoe
Para-triathlon
Powerlifting
Rowing
Shooting
Sitting volleyball
Swimming
Table tennis
Taekwondo
Wheelchair basketball
Wheelchair fencing
Wheelchair rugby
Wheelchair tennis

Badminton and taekwondo have been introduced this time around, replacing sailing and seven-a-side football.

The organisers have lofty ambitions – and why not.

“When people look back on the Tokyo 2020 Games in 50 or 100 years time, the Games should be seen to have been a catalyst for change in culture, society and values leading to the realisation of a more sustainable, spiritually richer, happier society.”

I’ll be very happy if I can remember anything at all in 100 years, but these events are special. I’ve been thinking about previous ceremonies today and one moment stands out for me. The song Caliban’s Dream, which was played at the opening ceremony to the Olympics in London in 2012. I have listened to it hundreds of times over the last nine years. It’s a stunning piece of work.

I’d love to hear about your memories of previous ceremonies – Olympics or Paralympics, opening or closing. Drop me an email at Paul.Campbell@theguardian.com or tweet me.

Here’s the song: