Category Archive: Tokyo 1964

Two-Time Olympic Champion Wrestler Yojiro Uetake Part 2: Born in Japan, Made in America

Uetake at his Induction Ceremony
Yojiro Uetake Obata at his induction ceremony to the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame

He chats with me with a casual ease, talking about his life growing up in his home town of Oura, Gunma, while overlooking the training of high school wrestlers. Suddenly, his eyes sharpen, he shouts out words of encouragement, and then returns to the reminiscing.

Yojiro Uetake Obata, bantamweight freestyle gold medalist at the 1964 and 1968 Olympics, has returned to his hometown to coach at Tatebayashi High School in Gunma. This is where he tried to find his way with judo, but was believed to be too light to compete against competitors of all weights. Wrestling, which divides competitors into weight classes, allowed Uetake to find his life sport. Before long, Uetake was a national high school wrestling champion. Little did he know that wrestling would take him to a far off land called Stillwater.

While teenage Uetake was dreaming of going to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the commissioner of the Japanese Wrestling Federation, Ichiro Hatta, was working on fulfilling a promise to Myron Roderick, American Olympian at the 1956 Melbourne Games and in the 1960s, and head coach of the Oklahoma State University wrestling team that would dominate NCAA wrestling in the United States throughout the remainder of the 20th century. After sending a strong Japanese wrestler to the United States in order to compete for Roderick at OSU, the wrestler went to Brigham Young University instead after being heavily recruited. According to the OSU sports magazine, Posse, “It made Mr. Hatta mad and he told Myron not to worry, that he would send him a better wrestler; that’s when Yojiro showed up.”

Yojiro, or Yojo, as the Americans called him did not really want to move to the US. After all, he couldn’t speak English at all. But at least Stillwater, Oklahoma had the small town feel he was familiar with in Gunma – people were friendly. And he liked the food – particular hamburger steaks and gravy, fried chicken and ice cream!

Fortunately, Uetake know how to control his weight so he could compete for the Oklahoma State University Cowboys. And compete he did, like no other Cowboy in its hallowed history. Yojiro Uetake never lost a match, winning three straight individual Big 8 and NCAA wrestling championships from 1963-1965, going an incredible 58 – 0 in collegiate competition. In between, he also picked up a gold medal for Japan at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

OSU star Yojiro Uetake
Yojiro Uetake with his NCAA winning haul.

What was the secret to his success?

Uetake had a great relationship with his coach, Myron Roderick. “He was a very strong wrestler,” Uetake told me. “He was passionate, strong in fundamentals and technique, and I really liked his focus on getting take downs. ‘Take ’em down and let ’em go’, he would say about how to get two points quickly.” The admiration was mutual. Roderick’s wife Jo Ann was quoted as saying, “Myron always said that Yojiro had natural talent, and was by far the best wrestler he ever saw or coached.”

Uetake also had a great relationship with the OSU football team, taking health and physical education courses with them, including future Dallas Cowboy star fullback, Walt Garrison. “He was one of the greatest athletes I ever saw,” Garrison said in this article. And apparently Garrison and his teammates saw a lot of Uetake because the coach not only allowed him in the practices, he allowed him to practice with them. Uetake credits football training, like running inside ropes, hitting tackling dummies in quick succession, moving side to side, fast-paced push-ups and sit-ups. “Tackling from a squat is great for wrestling as we are in the same stance, where we need to be ready to attack, hit, and get back and get ready again,” Uetake told me.

Living in America had a profound effect on Uetake. Not only was he coached by Roderick, and taken under the wing of the OSU football team, he learned how to build his own style of training. At the time, the NCAA did not allow coaches to train their wrestlers during the summer season. Instead, Uetake had to work to supplement his meager funds. “I would go to the Delta and Grand Junction in the Colorado mountains, which was like a desert. I worked on building irrigation pipes. And to keep in shape, I’d come up with ways to train.” Uetake told me that he would have to lift very heavy hay, but he’d do it in a way to work on specific muscles. He also maintained his feel for combat by actually tackling trees.

If he was in Japan, Uetake Obata told me he would be wrestling all the time, and following the directions of his coach. And he would never have developed his own way of training, and never really learn how to best take advantage of their own body and physical gifts. “I did this myself,” he said. “Roderick taught me how to focus, but I learned a lot on my own.”

Obata with the Tatebayashi HS wrestling team
Uetake Obata with the Tatebayashi HS wrestling team

On Monday, August 3, 2015, Yojiro “Yojo” Uetake Obata was finally inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. As he said in his acceptance speech, nothing gives him more pride. “I have always loved Oklahoma. Every time I come back to Oklahoma I look

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Two-Time Olympic Champion Wrestler Yojiro Uetake Part 1: Technique, Speed and Victory

 

Yojiro Uetake_1964_1
From the collection of Yojiro Uetake Obata.

Japan had high hopes for wrestling at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. And in fact, Japanese wrestlers won five gold medals, becoming overnight heroes for Japan.

But one of the least well-known of the overnight heroes was Yojiro Uetake, who moved to the United States in 1963 and competed for Oklahoma State University. Uetake wasn’t asked to come back to Japan to compete for the Olympic team, so he paid his way back to Tokyo in the early summer of 1964. When he arrived at the training camp to select wrestlers to represent Japan in the Olympics, Uetake said he was an unknown and made others uncomfortable.

The selection process was to wrestle the seven wrestlers competing in the bantam weight division. And the competition was strong: Hiroshi Ikeda (1963 bantamweight world champion), Tomiaki Fukuda (1965 bantamweight world champion), Masaaki Kaneko (1966 featherweight world champion), Takeo Morita (1969 featherweight world champion). But the Japanese from Oklahoma swept through the competition and finished 6-0, sealing his selection to the 1964 Olympics.

At the start of the Tokyo Olympics, the wrestler from the Soviet Union, Aydin Ibrahimov, was considered a strong favorite to win gold in the bantamweight class of the freestyle wrestling competition in 1964. As it turned out, Uetake met Ibrahimov in the semi-finals of the bantamweight championships. In the heat of the battle, Uetake’s left shoulder popped out of its socket. His coach pressed hard on Uetake’s arm and popped his shoulder back in. “I didn’t feel anything,” Uetake told me, but he went on to tackle Ibrahimov twice to win 2-0. “When you are in the Olympics, tension is very high. I was simply so excited I don’t feel any pain. Of course, after it was all done, it hurt a lot!”

Uetake had plowed through the competition to this point. But to win the gold, Uetake had to defeat Huseyin Akbas of Turkey, the reigning 1962 World Wrestling Champion. And to that day, no Japanese had ever beat him. Uetake told me that he only needed a tie to win the gold medal, and in such cases, a wrestler could become passive.

Uetake and Ibrahimov_1
From the collection of Yojiro Uetake Obata.

Uetake wanted to take Akbas down by grabbing his left leg, but was cautious because Akbar was fast and was known for turning that attack to his advantage and flipping his opponent. It seemed to Uetake that Akbas was staying away while Uetake was trying to find the right opening. In the second round, the referee briefly stopped the fight to warn Uetake to attack, and gave Akbar a point. That was the only point Uetake gave up in his Tokyo Olympic competition.

“My mindset was to never lose a point,” Uetake told me. “I would never ever let an opponent touch my leg. I’d always be looking at the opponent’s eyes and prevent any

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Komazawa Olympic Park: A Living, Breathing Legacy of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

Komazawa Olympic Park venues 2
Komazawa Olympic venues in 1964, from the book, The Games of the XVIII Olympiad Tokyo 1964

Are the Olympics a worthy investment? Does the investment create legacies for the host country?

The answer to those questions are often “no”, unfortunately, at least in terms of the billions spent on structures like stadiums and other various sports venues.

Many of the structures built for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics still exist, like the Nippon Budokan, the National Gymnasium and Annex, as well as the Komazawa Olympic Park venues. Not only that, they live and breathe. Click below on the video to see and hear what I did.

On Sunday, May 1, during the long break in Japan known as Golden Week, I took a short bicycle ride to Komazawa Olympic Park, and walk where 1964 Olympians walked. The Park is a collection of venues: Komazawa Gymnasium where Japan won 5 of 16 total gold medals just in wrestling, Komazawa Hockey Field where India beat Pakistan in a memorable finals between two field hockey blood rivals, Komazawa Stadium where soccer preliminary matches were played, and Komazawa Volleyball Courts where Japan’s famed women’s volleyball team mowed through the competition until they won gold at a different venue.

On that day, thousands of people were enjoying unseasonably warm weather under clear, blue skies. The tracks around the park were filled with runners. The gymnasium was hosting a local table tennis tournament, and the stadium was prepping for the third day of the four-day Tokyo U-14 International Youth Football Tournament.

Komazawa 3

In the plaza between the various Komazawa venues, hundreds were enjoying the weather with great food and drink. I was pleasantly surprised to find draft Seattle Pike IPA. While enjoying the cold beer on the hot day, surrounded by hundreds of people loving the day, I realized that Japan in the 1960s made great decisions in planning for the 1964 Olympics. I had a similar revelation earlier when I visited the National Gymnasium months earlier. So much of what was built for those Summer Games are a part of the everyday life of the Japanese.

Japan built a fantastic legacy for 1964. What legacy will Japan begin in 2020?

Komazawa 6

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Doves vs Pigeons: A Symbol of Good vs Evil?

pigeons over national staidum
From the book, Tokyo Olympiad, Kyodo News Agency

One of the greatest memories for the 1964 Olympians from the Tokyo Games is the opening ceremonies – the parade of athletes, jets sketching the Olympic rings in the sky, the lighting of the Olympic cauldron. The only event to get lukewarm reviews? The release of the pigeons.

  • “The pigeons are the most prolific dropping birds. We all kind of ducked for cover. The droppings from the sky were plentiful.” (British rower, Bill Barry)
  • “We all had cowboy hats. When they released the peace pigeons we were protected. Many of our compatriots were not. Our clothes were messed up but our hair wasn’t.” (American Judoka, Jim Bregman)
  • “The pigeons were dumping on the Olympians.” (American water polo player, Dan Drown)

Or were they doves?

To be honest, I was confused myself as Olympians, books and articles alike used the words “dove” and “pigeon” interchangeably. But aren’t they completely different birds? Doves are white. They symbolize peace. Pigeons are multi-colored gray. They symbolize disease in the urban environment.

Pigeon vs Dove

My confusion finally ended when I listened to this episode from one of my favorite podcasts, 99 Percent Invisible, in which producer Roman Mars interviews the author of the book, Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness, Nathanael Johnson. Here is how Johnson described pigeons:

Pigeons are legitimately revolting. All the things we find loathsome are really caused by us, humans. We bred them to be massively productive and then we put them in a situation where we fed them all kinds of food and we created this food waste that they could eat. They reproduce like crazy and so they overpopulate and they’re all squished together and they get all these parasites and diseases. A lot of the things we find disgusting about them is a result of that.

But as Mars explains in his 99 percent invisible site, pigeons have a proud and regal history.

Historically, these were birds of the aristocracy. Researchers believe they were domesticated in the Middle East and then spread around Europe by the Romans. Their habitats were even built into the architecture of Roman houses: one common element of a traditional Tuscan Villa was an integrated lookout tower and pigeon house. In the 1600s, pigeons were brought to Canada from Europe; from there, they spread across the United States. Governors and dignitaries would exchange them as gifts and house them in domestic pigeon roosts. As they became more common and wild, pigeons began to lose their exotic appeal and fell out of favor with the upper class.

Unfortunately, thanks to urbanization and the overpopulated and diseased state of the pigeon, our perception of this bird type has diverged. Mars again explains this quite eloquently:

This change in status is reflected in the evolution of common language as well: for a long time, “pigeon” and “dove” (of the same bird family) were essentially synonyms. Over time, the two diverged: “dove” was increasingly associated with positive things and “pigeon” became associated with the negative. Imagine, for instance, Pigeon Soap beauty bars, silky smooth Pigeon Chocolate, or the Holy Spirit descending from Heaven in the form of a pigeon.

So now I know – a pigeon is a dove, a dove is a pigeon. One, an alter ego to the other, akin to the devil pigeon on one shoulder, and the angel dove on the other.

I’m reminded of Milton and

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The Connolly’s Part 2: “In the Eyes of The Connolly’s” a First-Person Column about the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

Olga and Harold Connolly at the 1960 Rome Olympics
Athletes Harold Connolly And Olga Fikotova At Rome Olympic Games 1960. Rome- Jeux olympiques
In my research on the Olympics, I treasure diaries, and love first-person accounts in newspapers or biographies. They are personal, often insightful, sometimes poignant. In October, 1964, The Mainichi Daily News published a series of articles based on interviews with Harold and Olga Connolly, the celebrated Olympians famous for their gold-medal accomplishments at the 1956 Melbourne Games, as well as their romance and eventual wedding attended by 20,000 people in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

In this series, the couple, primarily Olga, shared the power couple’s thoughts on Japan and the Olympics. I’d like to highlight their views on the Japanese, and the Olympic Spirit:

Japan is well known for its service. The Japanese say it’s because of their “omoiyari”, which is a high level of empathy, a great ability to put their feet in the shoes of the other person and then act positively on that understanding. Olga Connolly, who won the women’s discus throw in 1956, pointed out in one of the articles an example of “extreme” omoiyari, giving an example of a Japanese boy who was in pain, but refused to show that he was in pain because he didn’t want the other person to feel bad.

Harold Connolly practicing at the Tokyo Games
Harold Connolly making a hammer throw From the magazine, Olympic Tokyo Games Special Edition No. 1, Tokyo Newspaper, September 7, 1964
The food in the village is excellent and so is the service. Everyone of the Japanese men and women who work in the dining rooms does his duty with the utmost diligence. They quickly clear dishes away from the tables and scrub them with soap and brushes. I noticed the hands of one of the boys who wash the mountains of plates and saucers – they are all red form the water and the detergent. But he only smiles and does not utter a word of complaint. I had a bad accident the other day – I spilled some of the hot tea on the waiter’s hand. I was very upset and sorry, but he only bowed and smiled. He didn’t betray any signs of pain though his hand was quite burnt.

Many non-Japanese love Japan because of the dedication to excellence. But sometimes that dedication can seem overwhelming.  The anecdote below made me smile.

At Meiji Park, too, some of the athletes feel a little uneasy, because of the extreme Japanese hospitality. Imagine a 120 kg giant weight man walking alongside a 65-kilo weighing Japanese attendant who insists on carrying his equipment. They mark your throws, bring your discus back and polish it shiny after every throw. The other day I got a little irritated when I wanted to throw and a fellow would not give me my discus until he had removed a stubborn stain.

Harold Connolly, hammer-throwing gold medalist in 1956, appeared in four Olympic Games from 1956 to 1968. Olga Connolly threw the discus in five straight, from 1956 to 1972. They live and breathe the Olympic Spirit. Here is their explanation of why they believe the Olympics are so important.

Here the whole world which shrank into seven thousands of Olympians shrivels still more – into a most interesting mixture of some five or six hundred who crowd in the hall. There are people of all shapes and sizes, speaking all languages, dressed in all kinds of clothes. On their emblems there are the most surprising inscriptions. Here a boy from Uruguay talks to a girl from India, a fellow from Cameroons engages into discussion with one from Turkey and United Arab Republic, while two Finns and a Korean stand by a listen to the conversation. Most people talk in some kind of English – I don’t think there is any other language in the world which is spoken with such a variety of foreign accents.

Sometimes we wonder what would happen if for some reason everybody had to remain in the Olympic Village for let’s say, six months or a year. Would it illuminate and solve the problems of the world or would it prove they are unsolvable? We believe that all the human beings here have so much in common, that it proves that the people everywhere belong into the same family, however it may quarrel.

Swedish athlete saying good bye to Indian athlete
Swedish athlete saying goodbye to Indian athlete at the Olympic Village, from the magazine, Asahi Graf, November 6, 1964
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My Ticket for the Tokyo Olympics: What a Day it Would’ve Been!

1964 Tokyo Olympic Admission Ticket Front

I’ve got my ticket for the Tokyo Olympics!

It’s Gate L of the National Stadium, section 27, seat O-20. It’s a Class-3 ticket, which is not as good as Class 1 or Class-2, but it has a far better view than Class-4 or 5.

One problem. The National Stadium has been torn down. And the date of the ticket is Sunday, October 18, 1964.

Yes, in my occasional hunt for Olympic memorabilia, I purchased an original unused ticket from the XVIII Olympiad held in Tokyo nearly 52 years ago.

I love this piece of history, the red circle, followed by a blue circle and the runner icon which represents Athletics. The clock at the top shows the start time – the white circle with black hands indicating that this is the first time slot of the day, and that I would only be able to see the second time slot of the day if I had the relevant ticket with a black clock with white hands.

1964 Tokyo Olympic Admission Ticket Back
Back of the admission ticket

 

The stubs are serrated in logical fashion – the first stub removed at the gate, the second removed as you enter the section, leaving you with the seat number. The price on the ticket is JPY1,000, which at that time was priced at USD2.80 or GBP1.000. Better seats would have cost one to three thousand more yen, the cheaper ones 500 yen less.

But who cares, as long as you were in the National Stadium that day. What could I have seen with this ticket? While I am not sure what times of the day these events happened, I could possibly have witnessed:

It rained most of that day, as it did most of the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. But that Sunday at the National Stadium would have been an amazing day indeed!

Tokyo Olympic Admission Tickets
From the book, The Games of the XVIII Olympiad Tokyo 1964
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Dreaming of Tokyo 2020 and a Japanese Judo Revival

Paul Maruyama and Roy 2
Olympian Paul Maruyama with me!

Paul Maruyama has three wishes for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics:

  1. For the USA to do the best overall at the 2020 Games
  2. For Japan to dominate in judo in Tokyo in 2020
  3. For the 1964 US judo team to reunite and visit Tokyo during the 2020 Olympics

I had the great pleasure of seeing Maruyama, member of the US Judo squad in 1964, in his visit to Tokyo recently. A second-generation Japanese-American, he is introducing his family from America to Japan. He is also catching up with people who helped him research his book about his father, his father’s friends, and their part in one of the greatest humanitarian acts in Asia – the repatriation of over a million Japanese abandoned in China after the end of the Pacific War. See my post about his book, Escape from Manchuria.

Escape from Manchuria coverMaruyama is a retired Air Force officer in the American military. Even though he was born in Japan in 1941, Paul had American citizenship due to the nationality of his Japanese-American mother. As an American, and a member of the 1964 US Olympic team, he naturally wants America to do well in the Olympic competition. But judo is a Japanese sport, and he believes the 2020 Games will be an opportunity for Japanese judo to shine again.

“Japan is not as dominant as they used to be,” Maruyama told me. “If they are dominant again, I think judo can become technique-oriented again, not wrestling-oriented. When I watch judo today, it’s hard for me to figure out what is superior technique and what isn’t.”

“Many try to win by wrestling the guy down. But the throw is the main thing. You want the guy to stand up straight, to commit, and to pick his opponent up and slam him down on his back. But it’s difficult to do that. You have to commit. If you don’t commit and follow through effectively, you expose your back to the opponent and open yourself up to attack. My dream would be that Japan shows the world again what judo really is, throwing for ip-pon – tai-otoshi, uchi-mata, seoi-nage.”

But finally, Maruyama wants to bring the band back together again, those Americans who came to the Tokyo Olympics to compete in the Games inaugural judo competition. While judoka, George Harris (heavyweight), has passed away, Maruyama (lightweight), bronze-medalist Jim Bregman (middleweight), and former 2-term US Senator from Colorado, Ben Nighthorse Campbell (open) intend to be in Tokyo for the 2020 Games. And their hope is to bring over their coach, Yosh Uchida, who recently turned 96.

Celebrating the 100th birthday of America’s most celebrated judo coach in the land of judo during the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo – Maruyama thinks about that and smiles.

64_judo_olympics_2
Left to right, George Harris (heavyweight), Jim Bregman (middleweight), Yosh Uchida (coach), Paul Maruyama (lightweight), and Ben Nighthorse Campbell (open weight division).  Bregman won bronze in his division. Campbell was a member of the US House of Representative and the US Senate. Uchida, Maruyama and Campbell have also been conferred the Imperial Decoration (kunsho) in Japan for their separate contributions in the promoting US-Japan relationship.
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Dueling Finns at the Tokyo Olympics: Javelin Throwers Pauli Nevala and Terje Pedersen

Pauli Nevala throwing in Tokyo_Tokyo Olympiad Kyodo News Agency
Pauli Nevala throwing at the 1964 Olympics, from the book Tokyo Olympiad_Kyodo News Agency

Terje Pedersen was the golden boy of javelin throwing from Oslo, Norway. He was 193 cm tall, weighing 93 kilograms, blond and handsome, and was the first person ever to throw a spear over 90 meters, setting a world record at 91.72 meters only five weeks prior to the start of the Tokyo Olympics in 1964.

For the citizens of Norway, Nevala may have been expected to take home gold, joining three other Finnish throwers who had won gold in the javelin throw in prior Olympics. And yet, on that cold and wet day on October 14, 1964, Pedersen threw poorly, his best throw of 72.1 meters, nearly 20 meters off of his world record, fell .21 cm short of qualifying for the finals.

The golden boy was out. For desperate Finns, in walked an unlikely hero, or as Neil Allen, who chronicled the 1964 Games in his book, Olympic Diary Tokyo 1964, called Pauli Nevala, the “lucky” Olympic champion. There’s not much written in English about the javelin competition, but Allen mentioned that Nevala was not as popular as Pedersen, and that in fact, “his selection for the Finnish national team prompted several hundred letters to the athletics association saying he was not good enough to go to Tokyo.”

Terje Pedersen
Terje Pedersen

Was Nevala unliked for some personal reason? As Pedersen had just set the world record so convincingly, was there room for only one national hero in the emotional mindshare of Norwegians? I don’t know. But Nevala assumed the mantle regardless. Nevala was certainly a deserving javelin thrower, his personal best of 86.33 being very close to the world record at the time in July 1963, but in the qualifying round at the Tokyo Games, he was in the middle of the pack with throws in the low 70s.

 

In the final round, Nevala improved, throwing 76.42 meters and then 78.39 meters. In the fourth throw, he uncorked a throw of 82.66 meters to take the lead. Gergely Kulcsar of Hungary and Janis Lusis of the Soviet union tried desperately to hit that mark, but fell short as the long wet day dragged on. Nevala was the unexpected Finnish and Olympic champion. Below is footage of his winning throw.

In an AP report at the time, the javelin coach for Finland, Hans Oeverland, painted a bleak picture for his countrymen, saying the competition was “quite disappointing for us and disastrous for Pedersen. But we will make no excuses. The weather was bad but it was the same for all competitors. I guess it all was a question about nerves.”

Hmmm…but what of Finnish champion Nevala?

Gergely_Kulcsár,_Pauli_Nevala,_Jānis_Lūsis_1964 on medal stand (color)
Gergely Kulcsar, Pauli Nevala, Janis Lusis

 

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“More Than 23,000 May Die”: What if an Earthquake Were to Hit Tokyo, as Posed in September 1964

Houses are seen destroyed in Kumamoto_Telegraph
Houses are seen destroyed in Kumamoto. Credit: Taro Karibe/Getty

On April 14, 2016,  some five weeks ago, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 hit Kumamoto City in the western part of Japan, followed two days later by a stronger earthquake of a magnitude of 7.0. Close to 50 people have been reported killed, while over a thousand people were injured.

While this pales in relation to the triple disaster of March 11, 2011 when an earthquake in the northern part of Japan resulted in devastating tidal waves and radiation leaks from a devastated nuclear power plant, there are still thousands of people living in shelters in Kumamoto, down from a peak of over 180,000 a few days after the earthquakes.

In modern day Japan, large earthquakes often result in significant hardship for large numbers of people. And just as it was a concern in 2016, it was equally a concern in 1964. On September 3, 1964, The Mainichi Daily News published an article noting the 41st anniversary since the Great Kanto Earthquake. On that day, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck Tokyo, impacting areas as far and wide as Yokohama and surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa and Shizuoka.

For those who have seen the very large and very heavy Great Buddha statue in Kamakura, this 84,000 kg statue moved nearly a meter due to the earthquake. Death estimates from this earthquake range from 100,000 to 180,000. Over half a million homes were destroyed and nearly 2 million were left homeless. These casualties were the result not only of the initial earthquake, but also due to subsequent fires and tsunami.

Because the Great Kanto Earthquake occurred so long ago, there have long been underlying fears of another one hitting Tokyo any day. This is true today as much as it was in 1964. In fact, the headline for the Mainichi Daily News article was “If Kanto Quake Hits Now, More than 23,000 May Die.”

Earthquake Casualty Estimates_Mainichi Daily News_Sept 1964
The Mainichi Daily News, September 3, 1964

According to the article, police and fire department officials released a report estimating possible damage due to a similarly sized earthquake occurring in 1964. These authorities stated that some 43,000 wooden houses in Tokyo would collapse. The article states, quite clinically, that “over 23,000 people would be killed or would become missing by the initial collapse of residences. Also 40,000 people would be injured, seriously or slightly.”

But the article goes on to say, casualties “would quickly increase if subsequent disasters, such as tidal waves, fires and traffic mishaps take place.” And in a major earthquake in a major metropolis like Tokyo at the time, that was likely. The article continues by stating that fires in over 300 parts of Tokyo would break out, the ability to deal with all those fires being inadequate. If a tsunami hit Tokyo’s water front, some 1.3 million people would be in the way. Half the major roadways and highways, more than half of telephone communication capability, a few major bridges and about 100 railway bridges, as well as hundreds of places storing combustible materials would all be damaged.

And in fact, an earthquake did hit Tokyo on October 1, 1964, only 9 days prior to the commencement of the Tokyo Olympics.

When will the next big one hit Tokyo? It’s probably best not to dwell on that…..

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Ewa Klubokowska’s Timing was Right in 1964, But Wrong in 1967: The Inexact Science of Gender Testing in the 1960s

Halina Górecka and Ewa Kłobukowska 1964
Ewa Kłobukowska in 1964

Can you come in second and still set a world record? In the 1960s, the answer was “Yes”.

Take a close look at the table below. The winners of the Women’s 4X100 relay at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was Poland, followed quickly by the United States and Great Britain.

4x100 womens relay 1964 results table

Do you see it?

That’s right. A world record was set at the Tokyo Games, but it was credited to the United States team with a time of 43.9 seconds, this despite Poland’s faster time of 43.6 seconds.

While Poland’s anchor, Ewa Klobukowska finished 0.3 seconds ahead of US anchor Edith McGuire, it took McGuire and the US team another three years to overtake Klobukowska and the Poland team. And it happened under unusual circumstances.

Klubowska, seen here triumphantly at the end of the 1964 4×100 relay finals, was a year away from achieving Olympic glory at the 1968 Mexico City Games when she failed a gender test. There was significant attention given to female athletes, particularly those from the Soviet bloc nations, due to physically masculine characteristics. Due to the failed test, she was unceremoniously banned from competing in athletics. She was not accused of doping, but instead was found to have “one chromosome too many”, as the IAAF put it at the time.

As we learn in school, men have a combination of one X and one Y chromosome, while women have two X chromosomes. Apparently, Klobukowska was found in 1967 to have, as Wikipedia put it, “a genetic mosaic of XX/XXY”. But the science of gender genetics was advancing quickly, and a year later a different test was used to determine gender, one called the Barr Body test. A Barr Body, as far as I can understand it, is a cell that has more than one X chromosome. In other words, women would have Barr Bodies, while men would not.

From the Mexico City Games in 1968, the International Olympic Committee began using the Barr Body test. If Klobukowska had been tested in 1968 instead of 1967, it would have been revealed that she had a Barr Body despite the additional “Y” chromosome, and thus should have been classified as female.

Ewa Klobukowska portrait

When Klobukowska was tested in 1967, and found to have a Y chromosome, the IOC ruled that the Poland team could remain gold-medal champions in their 1964 race, but that their world record time would be discounted. Since the time of the silver-medal team from US was also faster than the previous world record, they were granted recognition of having broken the record. Perhaps IOC’s decision was an acknowledgement of the inexact science that was (and is) gender genetics. But the test revelation created a cloud of shame over Klobukowska, in hindsight, one that should have never emerged.

One unanswered question for me – if the Barr Body test in 1968 would likely have not resulted in Klobukowska’s ban, why does the IOC not restore Poland’s world record time in 1964?

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