Flagbearers to Send Messages of Equality and Justice at Olympic Opening Ceremony
Voice of America
TOKYO - Many Olympic nations are expected to demonstrate their support for gender equality and racial justice on Friday night with their selections of athletes to carry flags at the opening ceremony.
The International Olympic Committee changed it rules and asked each nation to select two flagbearers in an effort to increase gender equality at the Tokyo Games. Gold-medal rower Mohamed Sbihi will be the first Muslim to carry the British flag at the Games, alongside sailor Hannah Mills. "It is such an honor to be invited to be the flagbearer for Team GB," Sbihi said. "It is an iconic moment within the Olympic movement – people remember those images."Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, right, and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, left, leave a podium after marking Independence Day in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024. Demonstrators with Georgian national and EU flags rally during an opposition protest against a foreign influence bill as they mark their country's Independence Day, in the center of in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024.