Naomi Osaka, champion for social justice, lights cauldron
In a choice appreciated worldwide, the four-time Grand Slam winner opened the Games.
TOKYO — What a moment for Naomi Osaka. For the new Japan. For those who recognize racial injustice. For female athletes. For tennis.
The fourtime Grand Slam winner lit the cauldron at the Opening Ceremonies 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 highestearning female athlete lives and where she has been outspoken about racial injustice.
Plus, everywhere in between, because Osaka is a superstar.
But she has often received an uncomfortable welcome in Japan because of her race, with her family having moved to the United States 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.
It’s always a mystery until the last moment who gets the honor of lighting the cauldron.
Sadaharu Oh, Shigeo Nagashima and Hideki Matsui were among the baseball greats who took part in bringing the flame into the stadium. And in a country where baseball is the No. 1 sport, Osaka was not necessarily expected to be given the ultimate honor.
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.
First gold: Qian Yang of China earned the first gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics, winning the women’s 10meter air rifle.
Yang overtook Anastasiia Galashina when the Russian missed the center two rings for an 8.9 on her final shot. Yang had a 9.8 on her final shot and finished with an Olympic record 251.8. Galashina finished at 251.1.
Quarantine: The French Olympic Committee said some of the medical and support staff for its men’s basketball team have been forced into quarantine because a passenger aboard their flight to Japan tested positive for the coronavirus.
The committee didn’t say how many staff members are affected as possible contact cases. It said they have been in isolation since Monday, unable to work with the athletes. It said all of the staff members’ tests so far have been negative.
⏩ Dutch team officials said rower Finn Florijn has tested positive for the coronavirus and is out of the Games.
Florijn is the fourth member
of the Dutch team or staff to test positive for the virus. The team said earlier this week that tae kwon do athlete Reshmie Oogink and a rowing team staff member tested positive and skateboarder Candy Jacobs announced on Instagram that she had tested positive.
⏩ The very first match of the Olympic beach volleyball tournament has been canceled because a Czech player tested positive for the virus.
Marketa Slukova tested positive earlier this week, knocking her and partner Barbora Hermannova out of the Tokyo Games. The Japanese pair of Megumi Murakami and Miki Ishii earned the victory by default.
Slukova is one of at least three members of the Czech team who have tested positive since their arrival in Japan, including men’s beach volleyball player Ondrej Perusic. The team has
said it’s investigating if the outbreak of COVID19 is linked to its charter flight to Tokyo.
⏩ German cyclist Simon Geschke was ruled out of the men’s road race after testing positive.
The German road race team is living in a hotel and not in the Olympic Village.
Geschke said he followed the hygiene rules at the Olympics. He added that “I feel fine physically but emotionally it’s a really terrible day for me.”
Judo: An Algerian judo athlete will be sent home after he withdrew from the competition to avoid potentially facing an Israeli opponent.
Fethi Nourine and his coach, Amar Benikhlef, told Algerian media they were withdrawing to avoid a possible secondround matchup with Israel’s Tohar Butbul in the men’s 73 kg division on Monday. Nourine was to face Sudan’s Mohamed
Abdalrasool in the opening round, with the winner facing Butbul, the fifth seed.
Judo’s world governing body said Nourine’s position was “in total opposition to the philosophy of the International Judo Federation. The IJF has a strict nondiscrimination policy, promoting solidarity as a key principle, reinforced by the values of judo.”
Nourine and Benikhlef attribute their stance to their political support for Palestinians.
Briefly: Six Polish swimmers returned home, their dreams scuttled by the country mistakenly sending too many athletes to Tokyo. Only 17 swimmers from Poland qualified, but the country’s swimming federation put 23 athletes on the plane to Japan . ... The Swiss Olympic team said 400meter hurdler Kariem Hussein has accepted a ninemonth ban after testing positive for a banned stimulant.