Report

New National Stadium’s opening ceremony.

Mako

January 9, 2020

New National Stadium’s opening ceremony. — DCIM100GOPROGOPR0607.JPG

Finally the Tokyo Olympic & Paralympic Games are coming up soon in summer 2020. The construction work on the main venue, New National Stadium, has been completed on November 30th, 2019. The opening ceremony, ‘HELLO, OUR STADIUM.’ was held for the general public on December 21st, 2019 and I luckily won the ticket…! This page would be a brief report of the New National Stadium’s opening ceremony!

Report

I do not have any tickets for 2020 Tokyo Olympic or Paralympic Games now as I kept losing the lottery. Since I really wanted to see the main venue, applied for this opening ceremony and luckily I made it!

National Stadium has some nearest stations. This time, I used Sendagaya station on the JR Chuo line.

You will see the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on your left. Keep walking and the New National Stadium is there.

Tohoku region’s food stalls and government offices’ exhibitions were set up on the premises.

My seat was on the 3rd floor, the grandstand side so I went up by the escalator.

This is the aisle to go to the stands. Beautifully and simply made.

Tokyo view from the 3rd floor of the stadium. Even the height is not very tall, the view is beautiful.

Bathrooms are very new and clean. There was no queue for the men’s bathroom but women’s bathroom had a queue.

This is the New National Stadium! This photo is taken from 3rd floor seat but don’t you think the field is quite close? It was also possible to see the sky from the 3rd floor. Maximum capacity here is 68,000 people including 500 wheelchairs seat unit.

The arena has 3 floors in total and each floor has seats. The field should be very close when you sit on the first floor.

Seats are quite narrow that I was stuck when I put down my bags.

Some areas have large steps so please be careful when you walk.

The stadium has 2 large monitors on the left and the right side. I felt it was little hard to watch as the monitors are a bit small…

Then at 18:00PM, the event finally started! MC was Rio Hirai, a former announcer of Fuji television station.

Firstly, the stadium warmed up by Tohoku region’s matsuri (festivals) performances! Wadaiko or Japanese drums, which were also used at 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan, made loud sounds. I guess we will see them at Tokyo Olympics & Paralympic Games too.

Each prefecture’s people wearing beautiful kimono performed a dance.

A former Japanese tennis player, Shuzo Matsuoka who is famous as the most passionate man in Japan also joined the event.

The venue got dark after the performances of Tohoku region festivals ended…

3 rugby players from the Japan national team appeared! As Japan National team was one of the best 8 teams in the 2019 Rugby World Cup, many people love rugby in Japan now. Loud cheers were raised when Leitch Michael, the captain appeared.

Then, popular professional singers in Japan performed one after another! “DREAMS COME TRUE” went first!

And then, the most popular male group in Japan, “ARASHI”! The audiences got more excited which was surely the suitable performance for the opening ceremony.

After the stadium heated up by the singers’ performances, the ceremony went on to the last main event, ONE RACE! ONE RACE is a relay ran by the mixed team of men, women, Olympic and Paralympic Games players under its own rules.

There was a live broadcasting of players in Los Angeles and Paris that they had the race on real time with the players in Tokyo! It was very neo-futuristic.

All the audiences created this beautiful view with their own phone lights! Can you see how it is amazing through the picture? It was stunning.

Then a surprise guest “Yuzu”, one of the most famous Japanese duo singers suddenly appeared and performed! The event ended on a high note!

Summary

How was the report? I felt that many Japanese are very excited about the completion of New National Stadium and the Tokyo Olympics & Paralympics Games. About 6 months to the 2020 Olympics & Paralympics Games…! Hope every details will be brushed up by then… and the stadium will be loved for a long time! It was a great pleasure to be able to enter the brand new stadium.