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SAYONARA OLYMPIA TOKYO 1940
Werner Klingeberg

At the Cairo meeting in March, 1938, the I.O.C. finally decided to celebrate the XUth Olympic
Games in Tokyo. The responsibility, however, for successfully carrying through these Games
was given to the Japanese Organizing Committee. And the Committee was able to keep faith
concerning the future, since the host-city of Tokyo, as well as the Government, had placed
all necessary achievements at its disposal. :

Construction plans considering the experience of former Olympiads advanced steadily. The
rowing-course was under construction and the work for the Cycling-Stadium had begun already.
Students rendered help by a voluntary labor service, since in Japan—more than in any other
country perhaps—the entire youth was hopefully longing for these first Olympic Games in Asia.

But fate was against us. ,
At the 15th of July the cabinet decided to advise the Organizing Committee to cancel

all preparation work.
At the present time in Japan it is the Government which has to decide upon the neces-
sities of the nation. And the Japanese work together like one man fighting for the
one aim, whether often pointed out by the Government, viz., Restoration of peace in

the Far East.
The withdrawal of the Government’s help decided the fate of the XIIth Olympic Games in

Tokyo 1940.
The Organizing Committee had only to fulfil the sad duty of officially returning the Games

to the International Olympic Committee.

All hope for 1940 is lost, but not the desire and the right of the Japanese sport, once to
celebrate the Olympic Games in Tokyo and, following the late Baron Coubertin’s wish, to
lighten the Olympic torch in the Far. East.

One decision put an end to the work of two years. Out of the downheartedness, however,
new plans were born, proofs of the true and genuine and sport minded spirit of the Japanese
youth and their leaders.

The organizing material was immediately placed at disposal of and sent to Helsinki. The
Japanese Organizing Committee is offering its hearty co-operation for carrying through of the
Games in Finland, so that the Committee in Helsinki can start its difficult task where the

Japanese Committee had to leave it.
The material will be taken to Helsinki by the Technical Adviser of the International Olympic

Committee.

Japan’s National Olympic Committee, proving its fair and sportmanlike spirit, decided all
events to take part with a strong team in the XIIth Olympic Games. And the host-city—having
striven since 1932 to be granted the Games for Tokyo, and after actively supporting all the
preparations, immediately decided to renew the invitation for a later date.

Let us hope that the I.0.C. will also accept the invitation to hold one of their next meetings
in Tokyo.

Thus, new activity is born in times of Emergency. But neither personal disappointment
nor blighted hope in Japan and all over the world, in fact nothing can stop Coubertin’s work
on its glorious way through the world. For the moment this work was only interrupted in
Tokyo, when it was just rising high.

If somebody had worked in close co-operation with Japan’s sportmen, as I did for more
than a year he would loathe to leave the people and his task, interrupted by force majeure.
But he will never give up the dream, once to see the Olympic Fire lighted in Tokyo.

For if there are participants in the Olympic Games who deserve once to receive the youth
of the World as guests in their own country, than the Japanese sportsmen, whose victorious,
sportminded and modest attitude have made nothing but sound friends since Stockholm 1912.

Sayonara Olympia 1940 in Tokyo!

 

 

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