One thousand and ninety six more days to the commencement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics!
That’s 365 X 3 + 1. Don’t forget, 2020 is a leap year!
Three years hence from today, July 24, Tokyo will be welcoming the world to the biggest sports fest there is – The Summer Olympics.
The first country to ever host both the Summer Olympics and the Paralympics twice, Japan will be the focal point for sports from July 24 to August 9, 2020.
In 1964, Tokyo hosted the Olympics from October 10 to 24, for a total of 16 days, which was standard in the 1960s and 1970s. However, since Barcelona, the opening ceremonies was pushed one day earlier from Saturday to Friday, likely allowing for two full weekends of sporting events, and an opportunity to maximize television viewership.
Another difference between 1964 and 2020 is the timing. In 1964, the “Summer” Olympics were held in the Fall to avoid September monsoons. But this time, the Olympics will be held in the hottest period in Japan – late July and early August. This has been the general timing for the past eleven Summer Olympics, excluding a September Sydney Games and Seoul Games.
My guess is that the various international federations want consistency in Olympic scheduling so that their own world championships and Olympic trials do not end up in conflict. That would be the same for many school systems that go on holiday break during the summer months. And television broadcasters may also prefer to have the Olympics to fill what are usually filled with summer repeats.
But I speculate.
One thing is certain. The Summer Olympics are coming to Tokyo on July 24, 2020.
Betty Cuthbert with torch at The 2000 Sydney Olympics
Rhonda Gilam was a typical woman living in Mandurah, a city south of Perth, Australia. In 1985, she was middle aged, married, and her three children were adults. She ran a bus charter business with her husband Keith, and she enjoyed golf, tennis and taking trips in her buses. But she gave it up when she said she received a message from God telling her to give up that life, which she did.
Thus began an incredible friendship between Gilam and one of the 20th century’s greatest sprinters, Betty Cuthbert, the only athlete, male or female, to win Olympic championships in the 100-, 200- and 400-meter races. The two had met only briefly once before. As they had both recently experienced a dramatic re-awakening of their relationship with God as born-again Christians, they connected immediately over the phone. Gilam told Cuthbert that “she had been called by God to care for Betty Cuthbert.”
In her autobiography, Golden Girl, Cuthbert wrote that was surprised by the call, but when she was invited to take a weekend break with Gilam in Mandurah, Cuthbert agreed to join her. After a wonderful weekend with Gilam, Cuthbert decided to leave her home in Perth and move to Mandurah so she could be near Gilam, allowing herself to be dependent on someone.Golden Girl
This is no ordinary friendship. For the next 24 years, Gilam took care of Cuthbert, who was a far cry from her physical self of the 1950s and 1960s. Cuthbert had MS, or multiple sclerosis, a debilitating condition that impacts the nervous system, leaves her fatigued, impacts her motor skills and her eyesight, and currently requires her to be in an electric wheelchair. Cuthbert had lived with MS since the early 1970s without telling people beyond close family members and friends, and in fact left her family in Sydney so she would not be treated like a person with a disability.
Betty Cuthbert with Rhonda Gilam
Gilam’s life became one of devotion to the care of Cuthbert. Until Cuthbert moved into a nursing home in 2015, Gilam kept Cuthbert’s apartment clean, transported her, showered her, massaged her, answered her fan mail, cleaned her clothes…everything. Another legendary Australian track star, Ron Clarke, a close friend of Cuthbert’s, was also grateful to Gilam according to the magazine article.
“I was just upset that she had done so much to be such a legend of Australian sport and then no one was helping her. I was disgusted. She was our greatest athlete. But she was also fiercely independent. So needing assistance was something foreign to her.” For years Clarke watched Betty fight her disease largely alone as she actively fought off first a wheelchair and later the notion of full-time care, relenting, at last, to the divine intervention of Rhonda. “When you get the call, you get the call,” Clarke says. “You have no idea what Rhonda’s done. She took her in, her and her husband, and they looked after her. Phenomenal. Had it not been for Rhonda, I don’t know what would have happened to her after that.”
Thanks to that special bond between Gilam and Cuthbert, the legendary winner of the 400-meter finals at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics is still flashing her radiant smile.
Ann Packer (55) extends a congratulatory hand to Betty Cuthbert (12), after the finals of the 400-meter sprint. Judy Amoore (11) is to Cuthbert’s left.
At 18, Melbourne was a brilliant blur. At 22, in her prime, Rome was a frustrating flameout. But at the experienced age of 26, Tokyo was a blessing.
When Australian Betty Cuthbert won the finals in the 400-meter finals at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and her fourth career gold medal, she was grateful.
I snapped the tape and realised I’d won. I felt so full of gratitude and humility that I clasped my hands in front of me, closed my eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks to God. Never before had I shown my appreciation so openly at the end of a race. I’d been able to control my emotions before. But not this time. I’d just won the final of the 400 metres at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. I couldn’t cry. I was just too happy.
Cuthbert, as she wrote in her autobiography, Golden Girl, had climbed a mountain. She achieved great success effortlessly in Melbourne and then failed to compete in Rome, sending her off into quiet retirement. But her inner passion to run and compete would not die. So she trained for the Tokyo Olympics, demonstrated little performance throughout 1963 and the first half of 1964, and essentially gave the press and the public little reason to believe that their Golden Girl, from Merrylands, New South Wales, was going to have any impact at the first Olympics in Asia.
But she believed. And she wanted to win. Cuthbert wrote of her nervousness the night before the finals of the women’s 400 meter sprint, and how she failed to fall asleep. She was going up against Britain’s Ann Packer, who was considered a strong favorite, and played over and over in her mind how she was running in the dreaded 8th lane.
When she finally got out of bed, and headed to the Australian team HQ, she learned to her delight that she had drawn lane 2, with her teammate and friend Judy Amoore in lane 3. The morning was starting off well
Thirty minutes prior to the start of the finals, Cuthbert hammered in her starting blocks, and took a quick jog to stay warm in the cool, damp October weather. And then she was reminded, by a shout from the stands – “Make use of the wind.” The wind that crossed through the stadium in a way that provided both tailwind and headwind, depending on what side of the track you were running. Most runners had to deal with it, particularly those in the inner lanes. The key was to be mentally prepared for it.
I got a wonderful start and went flat out as soon as I straightened up. For the first 100 metres I gave it everything I had and was gaining on Judy with every stride. She was the only one I was worried about at that stage. Ann would come later. As we raced down the back straight I felt the wind whip in behind me. Judy must have sensed me right at her heels because she spurted off a yard or so. I let her go. I told myself not to get flurried and to stick to my plan. I was having that little mental breather before really turning it on. Before I knew it we were coming to the curve. I caught Judy going into the bend, about 180 metres from home.
Halfway through the 400-meter final, which takes the runners around one full lap of the stadium track, Cuthbert saw her rival, Packer, when the wind came into play again.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Ann just a fraction behind me. Then the wind hit us. It was like running into a brick wall, but I was determined not to let it straighten me up and kept telling myself to lean forward into it. I could still see Ann. The wind was terrible and was like an invisible hand pushing against me. I was awfully tired then but forced myself to keep driving ahead. I didn’t think it would ever come to an end. My legs were getting heavier as the line edged closer. I wondered how Ann was going and if she had the strength to catch me. I felt her right on my heels and knew she must have been just as tired as I was. But I wasn’t going to be the first to give in. Keep going I said to myself…hold her off…it’s not far now. Ten metres, nine metres, eight metres…. An Australian television commentator shouted to his audience: ‘My God, she’s going to win it!’ Then I was just a stride from the tape. I knew I’d done it. I’d won!
Betty Cuthbert and her 1964 Tokyo gold medal
Cuthbert had accomplished something that no man or woman had done before or since – take the gold medal in all three individual sprints: the 100, 200 and 400 meters. As she stood on the award podium, on Saturday, October 17, 1964, Cuthbert was overwhelmed with emotion as she watched her country’s flag rise, with the Olympic flame “jumping and dancing in the breeze.”
Nothing had ever touched me as much as that medal ceremony. Eight years before in Melbourne I had been too young fully to realise just what I had accomplished in winning three gold medals. But there in Tokyo I had at last achieved some thing I’d wanted for so long, sacrificed so much for and worked so hard to get. It was a dream come true.
Over 50 years later, Cuthbert lives in a nursing home near Perth, Australia. Her room is unadorned with her sporting triumphs, except for a single picture of her days as an athlete, according to this article – “a shot of her crossing the finish line in her finest hour, her mighty comeback race in the first Olympic women’s 400m final: Tokyo, 1964.”
Young Betty Cuthbert working in the family nursery
For introverts, people who have a preference for small groups, long solitary periods absorbed in books or thought, success in the glare of the spotlight comes with ambiguity, an appreciation for the recognition, but an annoyance at the loss of private time.
For the shy gangly teenager, Betty Cuthbert, who had emerged as Golden Girl after winning three gold medals at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the parades, the parties, the celebratory profiles – it was becoming too much, as she wrote in her autobiography, Golden Girl:
All the attention was very flattering, but I also found it terribly draining. I slowly realized that my identity was disappearing. I was no longer Betty Cuthbert, the ordinary girl, but Betty Cuthbert, the athlete. My life wasn’t my own any more. Many people would probably have wallowed in the limelight but frankly I loathed it. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate what people did for me. I did. But how I wished I could have been just one of the crowd watching someone else up on that official platform. Gradually it all became too much for me and I began to have nightmares or dream that I was shaking hands with people. It was terrible but there was nothing I could do. I didn’t want to disappoint everybody who was trying to be so nice to me. But no matter what I did I never became used to the publicity.
Cuthbert continued to train and run in competitions, having a bit of success here, and a bit of disappointment there. As a member of the Australian team at the Cardiff Empire Games in late 1958, Cuthbert said she began to dabble in the 440 yards to help her team get pints. In fact, she ended up winning, equaling the world record time of 55.6 second.
The Olympics were moving to Rome, Italy in 1960. For an Aussie, that means Northern Hemisphere. And when you’re down under, the summer months in Europe are the winter months in Australia, traditionally an out-of-season rest period athletes. But the Australian team had to gear up for the Olympics in July, so train they did. And unfortunately for Cuthbert, the worst possible thing happened. At an impromptu tune up for the Rome Olympics, Cuthbert and other women were invited to run against the fastest Australian man, Denis Tipping, during the half-time of a Rugby League game. As she wrote in her book,
Around the 75 yards mark I was leading when I heard Denis drawing up on me. I was trying hard to stay in front of him when … BANG … my right leg went on me. I’d torn a hamstring muscle. I missed about three weeks’ competition while I was treated by a physiotherapist.
Cuthbert was on the road to recovery, but on the plane to Italy, her legs stiffened badly on the long flight. And when she began running on the cinder tracks in Rome, the injury began to re-emerge. Practice and marching in the Opening Ceremony were out of the question. When she lined up for her first heat in the 100-meters, she had a bad feeling. And when she tried to push it, she felt her hamstring pull back. She finished fourth and was out of the competition for the 100. She tried to make the 200s, but the pain in her leg told her no. And just like that, she was out of the Rome Olympics.
Rome was a bitter blow to me. I shouldn’t have rushed back to competition as soon as I did after tearing the ‘hamie’ but there was nothing else I could do. Another week or a fortnight and I probably would have been as good as gold. But there hadn’t been the time for that. If I had stayed out much longer than I did there‘s not much doubt that I would have had to be dropped from the Olympic team.
Betty Cuthbert (center) on the medal stand at the 1956 Olympics
Many people have said that Cuthbert retired after the Rome Olympics because of her injuries or disappointment. But she emphasized in her book that she was tired of being the Golden Girl.
I hated being a public figure to be looked at, talked about and pointed out every time I stepped outside my own front door. I’d been secretly nursing that hatred for four long years, ever since my wins in the Melbourne Games. Few knew how I felt. I’d never whispered a word to anybody but my family and closest friends. But finally it became unbearable. There were few places I could go without people recognizing me, wanting to touch me, shake my hand or get my autograph. It got to the point where I didn’t want to go out. I realized that being a successful athlete went hand-in-hand with being a public figure, but how I wished it hadn’t. I wanted to become just an ordinary girl like Midge (her twin sister). I wanted to go to dances, shows and parties whenever I felt like it, to wear a dress more than a track-suit, to play other sports where I didn’t have to worry about hurting my legs. I wanted to become a normal twenty-two year-old girl.
And so for a year, the retired and retiring Cuthbert, discovered what life was like as an ordinary girl. And the public began to ignore her. And she loved it. Until she didn’t. And then, as she was working in a nursery, her family’s business, “it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I needed to take up athletics again. I thought: ‘What a dreadful idea!’ But I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It was like a voice in my head that kept saying over and over: ‘Run again. Run again. Run again.'”
She would hear that voice again on other days over a two-month period, and she began to believe that God was speaking to her. And once she realized that she was speaking to God, she finally relented, and said, “Okay, you win. I’ll run again.”
That was January, 1962. That was two years and nine months prior to the 1964 Tokyo Games. That was a fateful decision that would take her to Japan and cement her legacy as one of the greatest women’s track athletes of the 20th century.
Betty Cuthbert edges Christa Stubnick in 200-meter finals at the Melbourne Games
No one’s ever done it – man or woman.
Betty Cuthbert won gold in the 100-meter, 200-meter sprints and 4×100 meter relay at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, and then added another in the 400-meter sprint 8 years later at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
The Merrylands, New South Wales native, was Olympic champion in the three major individual sprints. Think of it. Usain Bolt and Carl Lewis never did it. Florence Griffith Joyner came somewhat close, winning silver in the 4×400 at the 1988 Seoul Olympics to complement her individual 100 and 200-meter golds. But no one has shown such individual sprinting virtuosity over a career as Cuthbert.
Ever since winning local carnival picnic races as a primary school student, the shy tomboy was hooked on winning footraces. By the time she turned 18, Cuthbert had a reputation not only for winning, but for high knee lifts, long strides and wide-open mouth during her sprints.
At the Australian track and field championships in 1956, Cuthbert got eliminated in the 100-yard sprint, but won the 220-yard sprint, earning her a berth on the Australian squad headed to the Melbourne Olympics later that year.
After an overwhelming opening ceremony, witnessing her country’s biggest splash in the international arena, Cuthbert got ready for the 100-meter heats. After zipping through a very fast 11.4 in the first heat, the 18-year old eased up in her semi-final heat, letting East German Christa Stubnick fly by her at the end. Finishing second qualified her for the finals, but more importantly, the shock of losing the race at the end, even in a qualifier, was the motivation she needed to keep her focus.
Two days later, Cuthbert jumped to a lead, her mouth in her customary gape, and never relinquished it. One gold down.
A few days later, Cuthbert lined up for the finals of the 200 meter sprint. She had set the world record in the 200 (23.2 seconds), her first of many, only a few months earlier in an Olympic tune up. Having just won gold in the 100 meters, she was the favorite for the 200. And as it turned out, the winners of the gold, silver and bronze – Cuthbert, Stubnick and fellow Aussie, Marlene Matthews – were the same winners in the same order as the 100 meter race.
Two gold down for Cuthbert. And suddenly, she was dubbed in the press, “Golden Girl.”
Australia’s Golden Girls of the Melbourne Olympics: Flour Mellor, Norma Croker, Betty Cuthbert and Shirley Strickland with gold medals
Golden Girl had a chance for the trifecta – gold in the 4×100. In the heats, both Germany and Australia set world record times at 44.9 seconds. In the finals, Australia fell behind in the first leg. When Shirley Strickland handed the baton over, Norma Croker made up the time on the British team that had started out in the lead. Fleur Mellor held her own against her British counterpart until Cuthbert took the baton for the anchor run. Running ahead of Heather Armitrage of Britain, who was slowed by the handoff, Cuthbert held her slight lead all the way to the end and won gold for Australia. Here’s how she describes the feeling in her autobiography, Golden Girl:
We were stride-for-stride all the way down the straight till just before the tape when I managed to inch clear and win it. The four of us danced for joy and did an extra little jig when the time was called at 44.5s. We’d knocked seven-tenths of a second off the world record and four-tenths off the time we’d run in the heat!
It is Hiromi’s uncle, Yoshinobu Miyake, who started the family dynasty. Yoshinobu won silver in Rome in the 56 kg bantam weight class, and then took gold in both Tokyo and Mexico City at the 60kg featherweight class.
In 1964, when the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc dominated weightlifting, taking 15 of a possible 21 medals, Yoshinobu Miyake was the sole champion outside that Communist bloc. Miyake was so dominant that he was the only gold medalist weightlifter out of seven weight classes not to fail a lift. In other words, his competitors didn’t come close to pushing Miyake.
Yoshinobu Miyake had a technique named after him, like the “Ali Shuffle” or the “Fosbury Flop”. In fact, there were two names for that technique: the “Miyake Pull”, or more famously, “Frog Style”. When the 1.5 meter (5 foot 1 inch) man from Miyagi, Japan settled in front of his weights, his heels would sit close together, with his knees spread and toes pointed outwards at a 60 degree angle – as the picture below shows, he is said to resemble a frog. This frog style helped Miyake set 25 world records, reigning as the champ through much of the 1960s.
But Miyake worked at his technique. As a member of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, making some 12,000 yen (then $33) a month, he borrowed 80,000 yen (then $240) to buy a movie camera to film himself lifting, leading to a perfection of his technique, and eventually Olympic glory.
You can watch the frog style technique in this short video. You can see Miyake lifting at 18 second mark.
This was my father’s identity card for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Through his work for NBC News, and NBC’s sustained relationship to the Olympic Games, I was a fan of the greatest sports competition in the world. I was only one years-old at the time of the Tokyo Olympic Games, and of course remember nothing of it. But come 2020, when the Summer Games return to Tokyo, I will be there.
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