Kinda funny...or not...but Russia, the Russian flag, and the Russian national anthem are all BANNED from the Olympics. The IOC ruled this as a punishment for the Russian teams after the massive systemic doping that they participated in.
The Russian athletes participate under the flag of ‘ROC’, and if they win anything, that’s the flag that’ll be raised, and the Olympic Hymn would be played. I do not know how long the ban is for.
Correct… Some of them in Tokyo wearing very small Russian flags pinned to their gear in violation of IOC rules
Okay....the Chinese (according to NBC’s commentators) said the lighting of the Olympic Flame would be ‘unprecedented’.
So they ran the Torch into the stadium, passed it off a few times, and the last two runners were a Chinese...and a Uyghur.
But then, the Torch was simply plugged into the center of a giant snowflake which had all the participating nations in it. Then the snowflake was raised to the center of the stadium....
...and that was it. NO CAULDRON. Just a single Torch. How utterly underwhelming. Call me diappointed.