Tokyo Update: Opening Ceremony Snafus, Ticket Data Leak

After a week of turmoil, during which one of the chief composers for the music, Keigo Oyamada, known more popularly to the world as the pop artist Cornelius, quit at the last minute when it was revealed he had assaulted developmentally disabled classmates during his school days, quit and the director of the program, comedian Kentaro Kobayashi, also quit when an old video of him and his partner performing a skit making fun of the Holocaust came to light, also resigned, the show itself took on a rather subdued cast, which many thought was appropriate given that the games would be greatly limited due to safety measures enacted as Tokyo sees its infection rate skyrocket for the fifth time since the onset of the pandemic. For almost all of the sporting events planned, there would be no general spectators, and the opening ceremony was attended in person only by some 970 VIPs.

However, there was still criticism. During the very long entrance part of the program, where all the participating countries were introduced in Japanese alphabetical order, the music was a stream of orchestrated themes from famous Japanese video and computer games, one of which, “Dragon Quest,” was written by Koichi Sugiyama, a famous nationalist who has spoken out against homosexuality and denies that Japan committed any atrocities during World War II. Several groups both from Japan and other countries strongly objected to the use of Sugiyama’s music for an event that purports to be a “festival of peace.”

Nevertheless, the main gripe about the ceremony was that, at four hours, it was just too long, though many people were impressed by the creative use of drones that lit up the sky above the new, albeit almost empty, National Stadium. Since there were no crowds inside the structure to cheer the program as it happened, the sounds of loud protests from outside the venue by groups that have opposed holding the games in the midst of a pandemic, could be heard clearly inside, and were picked up by TV sound crews. 

There was also some consternation about the choice of John Lennon’s “Imagine” as a de facto theme song for the ceremony. The song was pre-taped with singing from an international roster of stars, including Keith Urban, John Legend and Angelique Kidjo, though many Japanese felt that a song which celebrated the idea of world without countries was inappropriate for an event that, despite its best intentions, tended to stoke nationalist sentiments. 

In another embarrassing pre-games faux pas, Japanese media reported that personal data of people who had bought tickets for the Olympics had leaked. However, later the Tokyo 2020 International Communications Team released a statement saying that the Japanese government spokesperson who had initially announced the leak had been misinformed. 

According to ZDNet, the team said, “We are aware of the incident and, after checking the facts, we can confirm that this was not a leak from Tokyo 2020’s system.” The spokesperson went on to say, “While we have been liaising with the government and other relevant organizations on a regular basis, we have already taken measures in the form of password resets to limit any damage for the very limited number of IDs detected in this case based on the information supplied by the government.”

Previously, Kyodo News Service reported that login IDs and passwords for the Tokyo Olympic ticket portal had been posted to a leak website through a breach, which the spokesperson described as being “not large.” Nevertheless, the information could give someone access to the owners’ bank account information and more. The breach seemed to be related to a malware attack. What’s most ironic about the attack is that no one who bought tickets for the Olympics will be able to attend, and almost all will receive refunds at some time or another.