With minutes
to go before the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, athletes from countries
across the globe are getting ready for the Parade of Nations.

Boxer Mary
Kom and hockey team captain Manpreet Singh will be the flagbearers for India.
India will be 21st out of the 205 contingents in the Parade of Nations.

The United
Arab Emirates (UAE) will be among the first ten entrants while Australia and Austria
will enter after Ukraine and Uruguay, reports The Indian Express.

What
is the Parade of Nations?

The Parade
of Nations is the first official introduction to that year’s Olympians.
Athletes from 205 participating countries will march their way into the Olympic
stadium behind their flag.

The parade
has been an Olympic ritual since the first Games in 1908 in London.

How is
the order decided?

Teams enter
the Olympic stadium in alphabetical order according to the language selected by
the organising committee, generally the dominant language in the host city.

This time,
the teams will enter according to their names in Gojoun — Japan’s 50-sound
phonetic order. India (Indo in Japanese transliteration) will march in 21st.

What
will be the first to enter the stadium?

There are
several exceptions to the order in which the parade is conducted.

The first
nation to march into the stadium will be Greece. The Parade of Nations always
begins with Greece, the host of the ancient Olympics and the first modern on.

The next
to enter

Greece will
be followed by the Refugee Olympic team. The third will be the Russian contingent
to use the country’s name, flag and anthem due to doping-related sanctions. The
Russian contingent will compete under the acronym ROC (Russian Olympic
Committee).

Who
marches in last?

The
host country is like the grand marshal in the Parade of Nations. Japan will
take its spot in the parade’s grand finale. Future Olympic host countries will
move to the end of the order to add prominence to the march.