Tokyo - Bidding for the Olympics and the Discrepancies of Nationalism

Abstract

Since the first Modern Olympics in 1896 only a few cities have hosted or will host the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games more than once: London, Paris, Los Angeles, Athens and Tokyo. There is no doubt that the improvements in infrastructures and structural changes that were carried out for Tokyo in preparation for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics demonstrated that ‘Japan was experiencing remarkable economic growth’. The ‘development’ of Tokyo, 97% of the Olympic budget being earmarked for improvements to infrastructures, resulted in excessively centralised politics and economics. Looking at the bidding process to host the 2016 and 2020 Olympics, it can be seen that various expectations of sports are political in nature: from the political problem of remembering legacies as mere representations to the current situation of a nation basing its presence on involvement in the Olympics. The Sports Promotion Act enacted in 1961 was revised 50 years later, and policies on sport came to be regarded as national strategies. The new act became the basis for establishing the Sports Agency and specified governmental support for hosting the international sporting events it promotes. The time has come to seriously consider the necessity of critically arguing about nationalism, as well as how to determine the relationship between a nation and sport in terms of sport governance.