Japanese led astray in Olympics opening embarrassment
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E-mail China.org.cn, August 3, 2012
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| Due to receiving incorrect route directions, the Japanese delegation only walked half a lap of the track before being led out of the Olympic Stadium. |
The grand opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games provided a real visual treat for both those attending and the global television audience on July 28. The most impressive part of the ceremony was surely the moment when the Olympic cauldron, which is formed by 204 copper petals representing the 204 participating nations. However, according to information from one source, which emerged on July 31, the spectacular ceremony was not quite the perfect spectacle it had first appeared to be. The imperfection in question centered on the fact that, due to receiving incorrect route directions, the Japanese delegation only walked half a lap of the track before being led out of the Olympic Stadium. As a result, the Japanese athletes missed the ignition ceremony of the Olympic cauldron.
After the information came into the public domain, Japanese Internet users were quick to express their anger. The incident is a further embarrassment in a string of red-face moments at the Games, including the erroneous drug allegations leveled at double gold medal-winning swimmer Ye Shiwen and the controversial decision awarded against Korean fencer Shin A-Lan.
Commenting on the debacle with the Japanese team at the opening ceremony, Naoki Inose, Vice Governor of Tokyo wrote on his Twitter account: "What happened on earth? I want to know." Japanese Senator Kouta Matsuda also contacted the Japanese Olympic Committee to confirm the news.
On August 1, the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) held an internal briefing and confirmed that the Japanese players failed to see the ceremony for the ignition of the Olympic cauldron. According to a spokesman for the JOC, more than 30 of Japan's 44 athletes hoped to return to the Olympic Village as soon as possible on the evening of the opening ceremony in order to conserve their energy. A subsequent miscommunication led to the athletes being ushered directly out of the stadium. According to Games regulations, the athletes were not permitted to re-enter the stadium and so missed the ignition of the Olympic cauldron.
According to Hashimoto Masako, deputy head of the Japanese delegation, such problems were not limited to the Japanese. "Besides the Japanese delegation, several other delegations also encountered such things," he said. "The Organizing Committee of the London Olympics will apologize to us. However, no athletes expressed their dissatisfaction." The Japanese delegation indicated that they would not be making an official complaint to the organizing committee over the incident.
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