Opening Ceremony Kicks Off Tokyo 2020 Olympics

Opening Ceremony Kicks Off, Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

The opening ceremony took place on July 23 before a mostly empty Olympic stadium in Tokyo.

Despite a number of uncertainties that have clouded the prospects of whether the Games would occur at all.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Tokyo have spike to their highest levels in six months.

Prompting protests against the games .

Olympic events coordinator Kentaro Kobayashi was also fired the day before the opening ceremonies ... .

... after video emerged of him making a joke about the Holocaust.

Despite the controversy, the opening ceremony occurs a year to the day from when swimmer Rikako Ikee led a flame ceremony at the National Stadium, .

To mark the postponement rather than cancelation of the Games due to the pandemic.

The athletes entered the stadium bearing the flags of their representative nations.

They held moments of silence in honor of all those who have died due to COVID-19, .

As well as the Israeli athletes murdered by terrorists during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.

This is the most dangerous phase of the pandemic coming up for people who are unvaccinated, Dr. Gregory Poland, Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group, via NBC News.

The Delta variant was first detected in India