Team USA arrives at Tokyo Games ceremony with Sue Bird and Eddy Alvarez waving ...

The pandemic Games are officially underway as athletes from 206 teams took part in the Opening Ceremony, highlighted by United States flag bearers Sue Bird and Eddy Alvarez leading their fellow Americans across the field at Tokyo's Olympic Stadium on Friday.  

Disputed, locked down and running a year late, the event is steeped in the political and medical baggage of a relentless pandemic whose presence haunts every Olympic corner. Even the crowd at Friday's event was limited to about 1,000 VIPs and hundreds more media members due to social distancing restrictions. 

The ceremony began with a single jogger on a treadmill, but built into a large-scale interpretive performance intended to 'convey the inner workings of the body and the heart,' according to organizers. 

There were, of course, the customary dance routines, in this case aimed at illustrating the massive undertaking host nations face leading up to the Games. Performers dressed as carpenters tap danced on enlarged work benches as metallic workshop sounds played under the music.   

But given the near-empty stadium, anti-Olympic Japanese demonstrators could occasionally be heard blowing whistles across the street in protest of the Tokyo Games. 

Another obstacle on Friday was the warm, humid 81-degree evening in Tokyo, which resulted in more than a few sweaty athletes ahead of the official start of competition. Tajikistan went so far as to dress its team members in three-piece suits, but a few were seen cooling down by removing their face masks as they paraded across the Olympic Stadium field. 

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In spite of sobering realities of the pandemic, Bird, a 40-year-old basketball star and four-time gold medalist, said she is trying to make the best of the situation.

'It's obviously a huge honor and a big moment and I'm so glad my team's going to be there with me because it's only right to celebrate and enjoy it with them,' she told Olympics.com.

'I want to have fun. You know that's what the Olympics are about. Yes, there are times to be serious and obviously there are times to focus on your mission and why you've come here but I think Opening ceremonies is really the one time you let loose and enjoy it.'    

Bird's fiancée, US soccer star Megan Rapinoe, talked about the honor with NBC while being driven to the ceremony on the Team USA Bus. 

'I know this means the world to her and I just couldn't be prouder or happier.  I feel like I get to share in it even though I'm not deserving enough to be the flag bearer,' joked Rapinoe, who has drawn controversy in the past for kneeling in protest of racism during the Star-Spangled Banner. 

Bird, a guard for the WNBA's Seattle Storm, was not the only professional basketball player carrying a flag on Friday. San Antonio Spurs guard Patty Mills also did the honors for his native Australia, while the Washington Wizards' Rui Hachimura carried the flag for Japan. 

Alvarez, a Cuban-American baseball player who also won a silver medal for speedskating in the 2014 Winter Olympics, is using his platform to support those in Cuba who have joined recent protests over the country's economic crisis.

'We feel for the people of Cuba right now. We're so proud of them because they are going out there to protest with stones, forks and broomsticks,' he said.

Peace was a distinct theme during the Opening Ceremony, which included a moment honoring the victims of the 1972 Munich Games massacre -- a Palestinian terrorist attack that resulted in the killing of six Israeli coaches, five Israeli athletes, and a West German police officer. According to NBC announcer Mike Tirico, the tragedy had traditionally gone unmentioned at previous Opening Ceremonies. 

Although the Olympic Stadium is largely empty and the Tokyo 2020 souvenir store is closed, hundreds of fans still gathered outside the gates and along the sidewalks of closed streets, waving at any person with an Olympic credential or any vehicle that went by with an Olympic logo.

Track and field events will be held in the stadium later in these games. The track itself is covered by a large black tarp for the opening ceremony and the infield is covered with a white tarp, one where graphics will be displayed over the course of the evening.