The Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony on Friday (July 23) was one surreal and solemn affair. Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, the ceremony unfolded in a largely empty rebuilt National Stadium (less than 1,000 spectators in the 68,000-seat venue). But that didn’t stop the host country — which last held the Games in 1964 — from putting on one spectacular show. Highlights include a jaw-dropping light show using 1,800 drones, and a quirky human pictogram performance. Here are the other moments which had viewers talking about via memes. You can catch the Opening Ceremony and the rest of the action from the Tokyo Olympics on meWATCH and

Glorious purpose: Team Singapore's contingent led by flag bearers Loh Kean Yew and Yu Mengyu.

The opening ceremony kicked off with a sequence — featuring Japanese boxer and nurse Arisa Tsubata running on a treadmill, and other athletes on rowing machines and stationary bikes — meant to represent the isolation and challenges everyone endured in the last 18 months. Tsubata, 27, was training to qualify as an Olympic boxer but her dreams were dashed by the pandemic when the International Olympic Committee dropped the qualifiers and instead allocated spots to athletes based on their world rankings over recent years.

Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, who’s ranked No.1 by the Women’s Tennis Association, was the final torchbearer to carry the flame to the cherry blossom-inspired Olympic cauldron. The torch relay started from Fukushima Prefecture's National Training Centre on Mar 25, and then across all 47 prefectures in the 121 days.

During the Parade of Nations, each country's representatives entered the stadium set to the soundtrack of orchestral arrangements of video game music — including Kingdom of Hearts, DragonQuest and Final Fantasy — a tribute to Japan's video games industry. And gamers everywhere went wild...

Tonga taekwondo athlete Pita Taufatofua really knew how to make an entrance — by turning up bare-chested and all oiled up, just as he did before at the 2016 Games in Rio and the 2019 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Photos: TPG News/Click Photos, SNOC/Kong Chong Yew