The 2020 Tokyo Olympics have come to a close in grand fashion, as is traditional. The real stars of the games weren’t the theatrics though, it was the athletes and hardly any of them were afraid to ham it up for the cameras and show their pride as anime fans! There were numerous examples of athletes striking iconic poses or, in some cases, wearing costumes that were obviously inspired by their favorite titles.
The first one we have to highlight is the women’s rhythmic gymnastics team from Uzbekistan who not only wore costumes inspired by Sailor Moon, but also did a full routine complete with music from the anime! The video below is from the World Cup earlier this year just for reference.
It does seem like there were plenty of Europeans who wanted to get in on some of that action, which included Greek long jumper Miltiádis Tentóglou striking this pose.
Then you have both the Chinese and German 400m relay teams striking Dragon Ball and JoJo poses, respectively.
As was pointed out in the replies, however, athletes from all over the world didn’t feel shy at all about expressing their love of anime, including this photo of Noah Lyles from the United States and team Italy striking their Ginyu force pose.
Of all the anime to be represented by athletes, though, I think my favorite has to go to Payton Otterdahl from the United States, who struck his best One Piece pose in front of the cameras.
Despite protests, no audiences, and a general run of bad luck, it does appear that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics went off without too many major incidents and the athletes had a good time representing their countries. Thank you, Japan, and anime, for giving us many happy moments.
