The Tokyo Olympics and politics of the pandemic: Frederick Dickinson, a professor of Japanese history and director of the Center for East Asian Studies, explains Japan’s history with the Olympics and why he’s certain this year’s games will happen.

Fred Dickinson

If all goes according to plan, the 2021 Tokyo Olympics will kick off on Friday, July 23, at Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium—one day shy of a full year since the original Summer 2020 games were scheduled to begin.

This year’s Summer Olympics has been rife with will-they-or-won’t-they speculation, debating the risks of holding the massive sporting event amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Critics warn of the potential for a superspreading event in a country that is still early in its vaccination campaign. Proponents, meanwhile, advocate the symbolism of pressing forward with the global sports event—and note the many strict safety protocols put in place. 

On June 21, days after an emergency declaration was lifted in Tokyo and other prefectures, Japan and the International Olympic Committee announced that the Olympic games venues would operate at half capacity and be limited to domestic spectators.

How would you describe Japan’s sense of investment in the Olympics?

Japan has been part of the Olympic community for decades. Tokyo first hosted the Olympics in 1964, but Japanese enthusiasm dates well before 1964. In 1912, Japan became the first Asian nation to participate in the Olympic games, with one marathon runner and one sprinter at Stockholm. In the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, Japan came in fifth in the overall gold medal count, and Japanese swimmers blew everyone away—including the Americans. That was the foundation for the successful bid to become the first Asian state to host an Olympics. 

That was originally supposed to happen in 1940. The war quashed those plans, but Japan got its chance in 1964. I teach the 1964 Tokyo Olympics in my Modern Japan course as a sort of second Meiji Restoration. The 1868 Meiji Restoration marked the start of modern Japan and a new level of Japanese global engagement. Likewise, after losing a traumatic war in 1945, the 1964 Olympics marked a new level of Japanese global engagement. Older Japanese have vivid memories of that event. In his interpolation in the Diet a couple weeks ago, Prime Minister Suga described how inspired he had been by the Olympics as a high schooler, particularly by the gold-medal-winning Japanese women’s volleyball team and by Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila, who captured gold in the marathon for the second time in a row. There is also a much larger younger crowd with vivid memories of the 1998 Nagano Summer Olympics. 

The Olympics are, in other words, an important part of life in Japan. They are a strong reflection of a powerful Japanese global presence that dates back at least to Japan’s pivotal role in the allied victory of the First World War.

The 1964 Tokyo Olympics was a key step in Japan’s rehabilitation on the international stage. But this second Olympics is of even greater potential significance for Japan. Barring a possible ‘superspreader’ event, Tokyo 2020 will feature Japan at the helm of a major global return to a semblance of normalcy.

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