2020 Summer Olympics Parade of Nations



During the Parade of Nations within the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, which took place on 23 July 2021, athletes and officials from each participating team entered the Olympic Stadium preceded by their flag and placard bearer. Each flag bearer will have been chosen either by the team's National Olympic Committee or by the athletes themselves. For the first time, each team had the option to allow two flag bearers, one male and one female, in an effort to promote gender equality. These Olympics were postponed from 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and due security measures some countries prevented their athletes to participate on event.

Parade order
This was the first edition in which the new protocols approved at the 138th Session of the International Olympic Committee held days before the ceremony were used officially. Some rules were maintained from previous procedures, such as the obligation for the Greek delegation to be the first to enter during the Parade of Nations and the maintenance of the entry of other delegations in the alphabetical order of the organizing country were maintained as the same entering as the last team. However, others were changed, such as the entry of IOC Refugee Olympic Team, composed of refugees from several countries immediately behind the Greek team. Another change was the positioning of the teams whose countries will be the future hosts of the next Summer Olympic Games, which entered the reverse sequence. According to the original planning, the United States would be the 5th delegation to enter placed between Afghanistan and United Arab Emirates delegations, but as the 2028 Summer Olympics are scheduled to be held in Los Angeles, they were placed as 204th delegation. This situation also happened with France which according to the protocol manual would be the 151st delegation, positioned between Brazil and Bulgaria, but due to the fact that Paris will be the host city of the 2024 Summer Olympics who entered as the 205th delegation before the host nation Japan.

As these protocol rules were approved before Brisbane was announced as the 2032 Summer Olympics host, Australia was not allocated to enter before the United States team entered in its natural position in the Japanese language order between El Salvador and Austria. All other teams entered in between in Gojūon order, based on the names of countries in Japanese. The names of the teams were announced in French, English, and Japanese, the official languages of the Olympic movement and the host nation, in accordance with Olympic Charter and International Olympic Committee (IOC) guidelines.

The Republic of North Macedonia had previously competed under the provisional name of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, because of the disputed status of its official name. It was officially renamed to North Macedonia in February 2019 and the Olympic Committee of North Macedonia (NMOC) was officially adopted in February 2020. It was North Macedonia's first appearance at the Summer Olympics under its new name.

Several of the nations marched under their formal Japanese names. For example, the Great Britain delegation marched under the formal name Eikoku ("United Kingdom") rather than the better known informal Igirisu (イギリス), and China's delegation marched under Chūka Jinmin Kyōwakoku ("People's Republic of China") instead of the more common Chūgoku (中国).

On 6 April 2021, North Korea announced that it would not participate in the 2020 Summer Olympics because of COVID-19 concerns. This marked North Korea's first absence from the Summer Olympics since 1988. North Korea (朝鮮民主主義人民共和国 Chōsen Minshushugi Jinmin Kyōwakoku, "Democratic People's Republic of Korea") would have been marched between Tunisia and Chile.

Teams and flagbearers
On 4 March 2020, the IOC announced that each team can have the option to allow two flag bearers, one male and one female, in an effort to promote gender equality.

Below is a list of parading teams and their announced flag bearer(s), in the same order as the parade. This is sortable by team name, flag bearer's name, and flag bearer's sport. This was the first time the Parade of Nations was conducted in Japanese order.

Taiwan (Chinese Taipei)'s parade entrance
Multiple Taiwanese media outlets, as well as Japanese lawmaker Akihisa Nagashima, reported that the Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) delegation had been specially ordered within the parade so that they would march under タ ta for either "Taiwan" or ambiguously "Chinese Taipei" rather than チ chi or チャイ chai for "Chinese Taipei". However, it would have done this regardless of special ordering, as Chinese Taipei has paraded under "T" or its equivalent in every Parade of Nations language other than Chinese (including, for example, PyeongChang 2018 and Seoul 1988).

NHK, the opening ceremony's official Japanese broadcaster, also specially commented "It's Taiwan!" (台湾です！ Taiwan desu!) after the stadium announcers finished announcing the name "Chinese Taipei", which also received attention from Taiwanese media.

Music
Musical pieces for the Parade of Nations were selected from several video game soundtracks created in Japan. These selections included themes from Square Enix's Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, SaGa, Nier, and Chrono Trigger, Disney's Kingdom Hearts, Bandai Namco's Tales series, Soulcalibur, and Ace Combat, Capcom's Monster Hunter, Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer and Gradius, and Sega Sammy's Sonic the Hedgehog and Phantasy Star.