The Olympics in Japan

The first Olympic Games on Japanese soil were to be held in 1940. Japan had won both editions. Summer Olympics in Tokyo (12th edition) and the Winter Olympics in Sapporo (5th edition). However, due to the Sino-Japanese conflict, the venues were changed to Helsinki and Sankt Moritz. However, with the outbreak of World War II, the two editions of the Olympics were cancelled for good. Japan made up for it by organising the 18th Summer Olympics in Tokyo from 10 to 24 October 1964. In the same year (just for the games) the first section of the Tokaido Shinkansen between Osaka and Tokyo was inaugurated.
Stadiums used in 1964 such as the Yoyogi National Gymnasium and the Nippon Budokan can still be found in Tokyo.

In 1972, the Olympic Games landed for the second time in the Japanese archipelago, this time on the island of Hokkaido and more precisely in Sapporo, where the 11th Olympic Winter Games were organised. The games were held from 3 to 13 February 1972. The ski jump, where the city of Sapporo can be seen in the background, is very famous.

Another 16 years passed and in 1998 it was Nagano’s turn to host the 18th Winter Olympic Games from 7 to 22 February. The Hokuriko Shinkansen line was specially built for these games, connecting the capital to Nagano, which was later extended in 2015 to Kanazawa.

On 7 September 2013, voting took place in Buenos Aires to award the 2020 Summer Olympics. The event was awarded to Tokyo, which beat off competition from Madrid and Istanbul.

IMPORTANT: The Olympics were to be held from 25 July to 9 August 2020, but on 24 March 2020 the IOC, at the proposal of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, postponed the event to 2021. On 30 March 2020, the new dates were decided. The Olympics took place from 23 July to 8 August 2021, and the Paralympics from 24 August to 5 September 2021.

The name remained Tokyo 2020.

These Olympics were held without the presence of the public.