Watching their team suffer a one-sided defeat in its opening game at the 2024 Paris Olympics was not enough to dampen the spirits of Tokyo native Ryotaro Kadoi and his friends.
The group cheered on the Japanese rugby sevens team at Stade de France in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis on Wednesday, two days before the Paris opening ceremony. Even among the thousands who filled the iconic ground, they were hard to miss. Three were dressed in national team shirts, one wearing a bright red wig of curly hair and two with small Japanese flags affixed to their cheeks. One friend was cosplaying as a Japanese flag and had dyed his entire face red.
They carried two flags, one a Japanese banner and the other a white flag with the kanji for “Maruo” written in black — a show of support for sevens player Takamasa Maruo. The group, of course, ended up on the video board when the cameras scanned the crowd.