The opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 will be held on Friday, July 23, at 4.30pm IST. The Indian contingent will be lead by six-time world boxing champion MC Mary Kom and men’s hockey team captain Manpreet Singh. While Mary Kom is not scheduled to compete the next day, Manpreet will be leading the side out for the first Pool A game against New Zealand on Saturday.

Except for the two flag bearers, the opening ceremony will be attended by only 42 other athletes from Team India. The decision to ask a large number of athletes in the contingent to skip the ceremony was taken in light of the COVID-19 threat. Also, players whose event is listed for the next day have been asked to not attend the opening ceremony.

With six officials, the total Indian presence during the march past would add up to 50.

“We won’t like to create a situation where our athletes are in danger of getting infected. So a decision has been taken to limit the number of athletes and officials participating in the opening ceremony within 50,” Indian Olympic Association secretary general Rajeev Mehta told PTI.

India has sent a large 125 athlete contingent to the Tokyo Olympics. With the support staff, the overall contingent size goes up to 228.

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On day 1, July 22, four Indian archers will be in the fray. Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das, Praveen Jadhav and Tarundeep Rai will participate in the individual archery events. On Saturday, Indian shooters, boxers, arhers and men’s and women’s hockey teams will take the field.

Among other countries, Britain will have no more than 30 athletes taking part in the ceremony due to COVID-19 fears. The UK has 376 athletes in fray at the Games.