TokyOlympics: What Hosting the Olympics Has Meant for Japan in the 20th and 21st Century.

Abstract

The 2020/21 Tokyo Olympics mark the second time Japan has hosted the Summer Olympic Games, and the third time that the city of Tokyo has won the bid to host the Olympics (1940, 1964, 2020/21). The Olympics coming back to Tokyo and being hosted in 2021 was a historic event for many reasons and serves as an invitation to re-examine Tokyo’s history with the Olympics. Japan’s history with the Summer Olympics and the historic quality of the Tokyo Games are examined in this paper, focusing on what meaning (or what symbolic value) the Games have carried for Japan and the city of Tokyo at different times in history. Looking at Tokyo‘s history as an Olympic host city, this essay will analyze how the Olympic Games and their effect on host cities, has changed in the 20th and 21st centuries. Answering the question; What has hosting the Olympic Games meant for Tokyo and Japan historically? And what did it mean now, in 2021, in light of that history?