In the traditional Parade of Nations, teams enter the arena in alphabetical order. Switching the languages would have put the United States’s 555 athletes near the back, giving American audiences a reason watch the full broadcast. As it is, the team will enter somewhere in the middle, because in Portuguese, the delegation is known as Estados Unidos.

Communications director Mario Andrada told the Americans yesterday that International Olympic Committee rules require that the official language of the opening ceremony has to be that of the host country.