1964 Tokyo Olympics: Japan's Post-War Return to the World

The 1964 Tokyo Olympics, held from 10 to 24 October 1964, were the first Olympic Games staged in Asia. Coming less than twenty years after Japan’s defeat in the Second World War, they became a showcase for the country’s rapid recovery, its new high-speed railway and its return to the international community as a peaceful, democratic nation.

Background: from the lost 1940 Games to 1964

Tokyo had first been chosen to host the Olympics in 1940, but Japan gave the Games up in 1938 as its war with China deepened. After 1945 Japan was occupied by the Allies, and it was not invited to the 1948 London Olympics. It returned to the Olympic movement in 1952.

Tokyo bid unsuccessfully for 1960 and tried again for 1964. In May 1959 the International Olympic Committee, meeting in Munich, chose Tokyo over Detroit, Vienna and Brussels. For Japanese leaders the Games offered a chance to show how far the country had come since the bombing of Tokyo had left much of the city in ruins.

Rebuilding Tokyo for the Games

The five years before 1964 brought an enormous building programme. Alongside the sports venues, Tokyo gained new expressways, subway lines, sewers, hotels and the Tokyo Monorail linking Haneda Airport to the city centre, which opened in September 1964. Much of this work would probably have happened anyway, but the Olympic deadline concentrated money and effort.

The most famous project was the Tokaido Shinkansen, the world’s first dedicated high-speed railway line. It opened between Tokyo and Osaka on 1 October 1964, nine days before the opening ceremony. Its “bullet trains” ran at up to 210 km/h and cut the journey from about six and a half hours to four, soon reduced further.

Among the venues, Kenzo Tange’s Yoyogi National Gymnasium, with its sweeping suspended roof, hosted swimming and diving and is still regarded as a landmark of modern architecture. The Nippon Budokan was built for judo. The graphic designer Yusaku Kamekura created the striking rising-sun poster and emblem, and the Games introduced a system of sports pictograms that later Olympics developed further.

The opening ceremony

On 10 October 1964 Emperor Hirohito opened the Games at the National Stadium before a crowd of about 70,000. The final torchbearer, Yoshinori Sakai, was a 19-year-old runner born in Hiroshima Prefecture on 6 August 1945, the day the atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima. His selection was meant to symbolise peace and the post-war generation.

Around 5,100 athletes from 93 nations took part. South Africa was excluded because of apartheid, while Indonesia and North Korea withdrew after a dispute over athletes who had competed in the rival Games of the New Emerging Forces.

Athletes and memorable moments

Judo and volleyball appeared for the first time. Japan’s women’s volleyball team, nicknamed the “Witches of the Orient”, beat the Soviet Union in the final, and a huge share of the Japanese television audience watched. In judo, however, the Dutch giant Anton Geesink defeated Akio Kaminaga in the open category, a shock in the sport’s homeland.

The Ethiopian runner Abebe Bikila became the first person to win two Olympic marathons, only weeks after an appendix operation. Japan’s Kokichi Tsuburaya took bronze. The American sprinter Bob Hayes won the 100 metres, the Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser won her third straight 100 metres freestyle title, and the Czechoslovak gymnast Vera Caslavska won the all-around. Joe Frazier won the heavyweight boxing gold.

Japan won 16 gold medals, third in the table behind the United States and the Soviet Union. At the closing ceremony on 24 October, athletes entered mixed together rather than in national teams, an informal scene that strengthened a custom begun at the 1956 Melbourne Games.

Television and technology

Tokyo 1964 was the first Olympics broadcast live across the Pacific by satellite, using the American satellite Syncom 3. Electronic timing and computer systems were used widely for results. The Games also spread colour television in Japan, and Japanese electronics firms used them to promote their products.

A few weeks later, from 8 to 12 November 1964, Tokyo hosted the Paralympic Games for athletes with disabilities, only the second edition of the event.

Legacy

The Games became a symbol of Japan’s “economic miracle” of the 1950s and 1960s. The Shinkansen grew into a national network and inspired high-speed railways around the world. The Olympics also helped change daily life in Tokyo, from public hygiene campaigns to new highways, though some residents were displaced and old waterways were covered by roads.

Tokyo hosted the Summer Games again in 2021, delayed by a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many 1964 venues, including the Yoyogi gymnasium and the Budokan, were used again.

Timeline

• 1938: Japan gives up the 1940 Olympic Games awarded to Tokyo.
• 1959, 26 May: The IOC chooses Tokyo to host the 1964 Games.
• 1964, 17 September: The Tokyo Monorail to Haneda Airport opens.
• 1964, 1 October: The Tokaido Shinkansen opens between Tokyo and Osaka.
• 1964, 10 October: Emperor Hirohito opens the Games; Yoshinori Sakai lights the flame.
• 1964, 21 October: Abebe Bikila wins his second Olympic marathon.
• 1964, 24 October: Closing ceremony at the National Stadium.
• 1964, 8–12 November: Tokyo hosts the Paralympic Games.

Why it matters

Tokyo 1964 marked the first time the Olympics came to Asia and announced Japan’s transformation from a defeated wartime power into a modern, peaceful and prosperous nation. Its infrastructure, especially the Shinkansen, shaped Japan for decades, and the Games set a pattern later hosts followed: using the Olympics to remake a city and its image.