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The Sustainable Optimismof the Tokyo Olympics 2020
By Mukesh Williams

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics were held in 2021 in
the midst of rising Covid-19 infections, public objections, badweather and financial loss, and resulted in the highest number ofgold medals for Japan in the history of its participation in the Games.
Any event postponed and held at a later date acquires a tenacity ofpurpose and brings new passion and intensity. So all was not so bad
about the summer Olympics. Riding a wave of 1964 nostalgia andreconstruction, when Yoshinori Sakai was a torchbearer at theopening ceremony of the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan did well. Sakai,
who was born on Aug. 6, 1945 in Hiroshima two hours after theatomic bomb exploded, represented renewal and peace as he lit theOlympic flame. Japan is not a newcomer in organizing large scaleinternational events nor working under duress, having also hosted
the Winter Olympics in Sapporo (1972) and in Nagano (1998), so in2020 there were great expectations and hope too in the initial stagesof planning.

Reconstruction Olympics of JapanThe Olympic Games evolved to represent man’s indomitable spirit
to surmount the insurmountable. Japan wanted to live up to Kenji
Miyazawa’s great exhortation – “Be not defeated by the rain.” During
the period from July 23 to Aug. 8 when the Games were in full swing
there were few or no spectators. It seemed that things had not been
going well for Japan ever since the tsunami, earthquake and nuclear
accident of 2011. There was a desperate need to rebuild economic
and social infrastructure. This Olympics was aptly termed the“Reconstruction Olympics”. Japan had a tradition of economic andsocial reconstruction. Though the 1940 Tokyo Games did not happen
due to the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II, they were
aimed at a quick recovery from the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake,while the 1964 Olympics demonstrated how Japan could rise fromthe ashes of war like a sphinx. Obviously, it required a tenacity of
purpose to stage the Olympics during the continuing spread of theCovid-19 pandemic. In ancient times, the Games represented achallenge to the human spirit to overcome wars and epidemics.
These latest Games made good use of modern technology to create asickness-free zone to enable the events to be held safely. In thatregard, the Tokyo Olympics 2020 could be seen as a benchmark forovercoming the difficulties of holding a global event safely.

52 Japan SPOTLIGHT • January / February 2022

Author Mukesh Williams

The Obstacles to Competition
The Olympic Games have always been dogged by obstacles. Everyorganizer and every athlete knows this. Participants train for years toshow their skills and win events to delight viewers from around theworld. Even three millennia ago the organizers of the Olympics werebattling with similar problems as they do today, but with much lesstechnology and resources. The first record of the Olympics can betraced back to 776 B.C., around the time Greece was gripped byinternal strife and infectious diseases, while many historians believe
the Games started well before then. Pursued by wars and epidemics,
the ancient king of Elis took to the Delphic oracle which advised him
to hold a sports competition that would level regional conflicts andbring about truces.
The Tokyo Olympics 2020 faced numerous obstacles – thepandemic, public criticism, high costs and eventual postponement. Itwas perhaps the costliest Olympics in history, at about ¥3 trillion.
But the prefectural governments and the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) strived to overcome these impediments. The goalfor Japan was much bigger: it was not just the staging of the Gamesbut the social, economic and innovative possibilities it would open
up for the country. The local organizers were interested in creating ahigh tech and sustainable model of urban living and economic
growth. They wanted to show to the world another Japanese
economic “miracle”.
The pressure on Japanese organizers and athletes was accordingly
tremendous – to see the Games succeed overall and to achieve
outstanding performances. The United States topped the medals
table with 39 golds and a total of 113, while China came second with
38 golds with a total of 88. Japan ended in third place, its highestever standing, with 27 golds and a total of 58 – a remarkableachievement given the much smaller size of its population. With theaim of encouraging more interest from younger people, and at theprompting of the host nation, IOC President Thomas Bachintroduced five new sports at these Games – karate, skateboarding,sport climbing, baseball and surfing – to make a total of 34 sports.

Local Response to a Global Event
Even amidst some public concern that the government was more
focused on fighting the pandemic, the Olympic Games went ahead.
They proved successful largely for two reasons: the determination of
https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/

prefectural governments that had worked for one and a half years torecalibrate the events, and the grit of local communities to showcase
Japan’s emergence from the tsunami and nuclear disaster a decadeago.

Photo: Masahiro Nakamura

The Enduring Power of Enoshima Sailing
Sailing is not just a competition between human beings but often
between human beings and nature. Sailing boats must negotiate
turbulent waters and rough winds. They must play with headwinds
and beam winds moving quickly in different directions. It requires
dexterity to adapt to rapid changes in the environment and themaneuvers of competing teams. The teamwork necessary makes it
an ideal sport for Olympic competition.
The prefectural government of Kanagawa had just finalized therelocation of 100 local sailing vessels and yachts to clear up
Enoshima Yacht Harbor for the Olympic Games that would bring in
660 sailing vessels, as well as 250 sailors, 250 coaches and 160
judges. Though most of the Olympic sailors stayed at the Athletes
Village in Tokyo, many coaches stayed at the Oiso Prince Hotel in
Kanagawa which was about 30-40 minutes by car from Enoshima.
Officials had to handle anti-corona measures, public disapproval andsailing preparations all at once. It was one of the largest projects
undertaken by the prefectural government. The initial response of theowners to shifting their sailing vessels was positive but when they
discovered they had to move their vessels to another pier then issues
connected to the size of the vessels and the space in the pier became
problematic. Some of the owners of the vessels were growing old
and had found homes closer to the harbor where their vessels wereanchored. There were other owners who wanted to be near theiryachts as much as possible. Also, checking the anchored ships
weekly to see that they stayed in good condition was an arduoustask. So the appropriate remuneration from the Tokyo government
for relocation, cartage and maintenance of 1,000 vessels wasdecided. But after the remuneration for the shifting was finalized andthe contracts drawn up, they had to be changed. In February 2020,
all contracts were cancelled and in March 2020 the Olympics waspostponed.
The prefectural government had to deal with a new situation – toextend the contracts or write new ones. Half of the owners, according
to one anonymous source, wanted to stay in the new place but theother half wanted to keep their vessels back. After a year when thenew contracts were signed, only 700 owners remained. The rest had
either given up yachting or were too old to redo the transfers. The
anchorage for sailing boats had rusted over the years and the yard
needed repairs. Though money was not in short supply, the work
was phenomenal and the cost of waiting added to the expenditure.
The original budget was ¥1.1 billion but with the postponement, itended up at ¥1.9 billion. Since two prefectures, Kanagawa andTokyo, were involved the task of mutual coordination and coordinatingwith clients was complex. But slowly as the Games came nearer theyEnoshima Harborbegan to feel hopeful that things would finally work out.

Kuma’s Living Tree Structure of the NationalStadium
The controversy of replacing an international architect with a local
one to design the national stadium was not just about the cost but
sustainability and symbolism. The less than 20,000 square meterJapan National Stadium in Kasumigaoka Meiji-Jingu Park for theTokyo Olympics was built to Kengo Kuma’s cheaper design of ¥157
billion. The British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid had wanted an
exorbitant sum of ¥196.5 billion, which was criticized by both theJapanese public and athletes. Kuma’s National Stadium was a uniqueblend of Japanese tradition with sustainable architecture. Kuma loves
to play with timber and wind flows. He believes that our traumatic
age is no more about “expansion” but “intimacy and humanexperience”. He felt that Japanese houses, shops and temples are
traditionally made from wood and they must be represented in thecreation of the stadium. He procured 47 types of wood from thePhoto: mu33

The New National Stadium was completed on Nov. 30, 2019.

Japan SPOTLIGHT • January / February 202253

country’s 47 prefectures to underscore the significance and eleganceof wood. He employed the ancient Japanese technique of cypress
wood weaving to give strength to the structure to withstandearthquakes, called hell joints. The structure became a “living tree”,
which allowed wind to circulate. Replacing air conditioning with windtunnels created an abiding harmony with planet Earth. Since thenumber of spectators was drastically reduced, Kuma painted eachseat in different colors to give the stadium an illusion of fullness. Thestadium has 68,000 seats and cedar panels adorn its eaves. About
47,000 trees adorn the circulation spaces to make the stadium blend
with the wooded surroundings.

Recycling a Sustainable Future
Sustainability is a buzzword today. But what does it actually meanand how does it enter the Olympics? Sustainability means a wise useof resources and recycling things. Therefore, it means to meet oursocial, environmental and economic needs without compromising
the needs of future generations. It also means to recycle anythingthat can be recycled – cardboard beds, recycled plastic podiums,
medals from phone metals. The idea of sustainability at the Games isbased on the concept of recycling. From the venues and podiums
used during the 1964 Games to uniforms and medals, all have been
recycled. The Olympic Village itself was built on reclaimed land. The
beds at the Olympic Village were made from reinforced cardboard,which will be recycled soon after the Games. The 5,000 Olympic
medals were molded from precious metals extracted from electronic
gadgets. Many people donated their used electronic devices such as
old mobile phones for this purpose. During the two-year donation
campaign, about 78,985 tons of such devices were collected. NTT

Photo: Japan SPOTLIGHT

The Olympic torch set up on Yume-no-ohashi (The Bridgeof Dreams) during the Games.

54 Japan SPOTLIGHT • January / February 2022

Docomo outlets collected 6.21 million mobile phones for thispurpose. The Olympics also adopted the five Sustainable
Development Goals in its agenda – zero carbon emissions, zerowaste, supporting nature, upholding human rights and cooperatingwith all. The idea of the Olympics, “Be better together – for the planet
and the people”, helps the push towards a sustainable world.

The Flame from the Past
The Olympic torch has eternally symbolized the burring flame ofknowledge and life. The Olympic Games are therefore symbolic of
the temporal journey of humankind from the past to the present inovercoming daunting obstacles. The 2020 Olympic torch used thedesign of cherry blossoms and the technology of the shinkansen.
The cherry blossom, which is the national flower of Japan,
symbolizes renewal and optimism, much needed in the time of theCovid-19 pandemic. The seamless flowing design of the torchmolded from a single sheet of metal employed the cutting-edge
technology used in constructing the bullet trains. Naomi Osaka, afour-time Grand Slam tennis star and advocate for the mental healthof athletes, lighted the torch.
Hundreds of volunteers had been preparing for the dance towelcome the Olympic participants but when the Games werepostponed they felt disappointed. Asao and Mitsuko Funasaki fromKanagawa wanted to join the opening ceremony of the Games as it
fell on July 24, 2020, which was his 68th birthday, a significant event
in Japan. He and his wife applied to be runners but their application
was rejected. Asao desired to be a runner with the torch but theOlympics was postponed.
“We realized that since Enoshima was one of the host towns for

Photo: Asao and Mitusko Funasaki

Asao and Mitsuko Funasaki, local volunteers welcoming Olympic members

the event, we wanted to do our best to welcome the Olympic
participants so Tokyo would be happy,” Asao Funasaki said. “In themidst of these hurdles, we were rehearsing our dance to welcome
the participants but due to the pandemic the governor stopped it.
Finally, after repeated requests from the locals the dance wasreconstituted.” Funasaki and his wife danced on the bridge ofEnoshima and the Olympics members saw them from their buses.
“The Olympics members were so keenly watching us that it warmed
our hearts,” said Mitsuko. “We prayed for the recovery of Fukushimafrom the March 11 tsunami. Farmers from Fukushima provided foodto the Athletes Village to show the revival of Japan. Participants were
given rice and peaches from Fukushima after 10 years and theyrealized how tasty they were. This lifted the ban on some productsfrom Fukushima.”
The number of dancers was sharply reduced from 500 to 200.
Most of those who were left were elderly men and women and theyfeared they might catch the coronavirus. But they all performed
without getting infected. Though they could not join the actual
events, they saw them on TV screens and cheered the teams
Funasaki and his wife supported, and helped establish a connection
between Enoshima residents and the athletes. Both strongly felt that
“It was wonderful to have the events.”

Hydrogen-Powered Olympics Gives Inklingof Future Society
The Japanese government hopes that the Tokyo Olympics will
create a Japanese hydrogen society that can become fully
sustainable. For the first time in the Olympic Games, hydrogen fuelwas used to light the Olympic Torch and the cauldrons. The
electricity used to generate the hydrogen fuel came from Fukushimasolar panels. Japan is trying to move towards a sustainable energy
future. Hydrogen fuel is seen by energy experts as a wonder fuel – it
has no carbon emissions and can be produced through solar energy.
Hydrogen fuel in cities is the non-polluting fuel for future vehicles,
for heating water, for lighting homes and doing everything thatconventional electricity does. Since hydrogen fuel burns in contact
with oxygen it does not release carbon dioxide. If hydrogen fuel iscreated through solar power, it releases zero carbon as it releases
energy when it comes into contact with oxygen. It is easy to store asfuel cells and can be used to fire combustion engines. Japan alreadyhas a national hydrogen strategy and increased R&D in this area to
US$300 million in 2019. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government haschosen Tokyo Technical University to set up a Research Centre forHydrogen Energy-Based Society. Can hydrogen fuel reverse global
warming and turn the world into a hydrogen-powered heaven?
The 1964 Olympic Games brought the new high-speed shinkansen
train network to Japan. The intention of the Tokyo Metropolitan
Government has been that the 2020 Games would make Japan into ahydrogen-dependent society. The Olympic Village embodied thespirit of “tradition and modernity”. It carried the stamp of Japanese-

ness but used hydrogen fuel cell power to heat and light up its
dorms, cafes and gyms for 11,000 athletes. Now that the Games areover the Village facility will be transformed into hydrogen-powered
living spaces with condominiums, schools, shops and gyms. Seiko
Hashimoto, minister of state for the Tokyo Olympics andParalympics, felt that the rationale of the Games during the pandemic
was to create a sustainable model of living for the future.
With this aim in mind, a huge Toshiba-constructed hydrogen plantsystem was installed in Namie town in Fukushima Prefecture. The
system can produce 900 tons of hydrogen annually by using 10,000
kilowatts of solar energy. The Kawasaki King Skyfront Tokyu REI
Hotel uses plastic waste to generate hydrogen energy to createcarbon-free electricity and hot water. Toyota Motor Corporation wasinvolved in the Olympic Games as a partner to develop hydrogenpowered passenger cars. Its 500 FCEV MIRAI cars and 100 SORAbuses, and many forklift trucks, ran on hydrogen power at theOlympic Village. The name SORA is a contraction of four words –sky, ocean, river and air. Each of these SORA buses transported 79
Olympic participants and experts to and fro. They ran on 10 highpressure tanks that could store up to 600 liters of liquid hydrogen.
The forklift trucks transported heavy equipment back and forth. To
meet the daily need for hydrogen, 35 fuel stations were built in thecity. The Tokyo government has planned to construct 80 hydrogenstations to fuel 100,000 FCEV vehicles by 2025. Toyota also
designed a semi-autonomous vehicle with seat and handrail
adjustments called e-Palette for the movement of 20 athletes during
the Paralympic Games but it was withdrawn after it caused a minor
accident. The IOC uses these same cars to move around at its
headquarters in Switzerland.

Conclusion
Tokyo hopes that in the near future it will emerge as the firsthydrogen-powered eco-friendly city in the world. If that happens, thesagacity and farsightedness of the Olympic Games organizers will
become apparent. The Tokyo Olympics 2020 will be remembered forthe determination of the Japanese to rise above the pandemic andreconstruct the nation. The Olympics demonstrated ways to create asustainable urban environment fired by the power of hydrogen; it
showed that unthinking consumption will exhaust the resources ofthe earth and leave very little for future generations; it revealed thetechnology of pollution-free travel; it demonstrated techniques forrecycling metals and plastics, and using natural renewable
resources; it created a new architectural design that was both green
and eco-friendly; and it emphasized dialogue and communication in
upholding the dignity of humankind to prevail against all odds.

Professor Mukesh Williams is advisor to the South Asia Research Center at
Soka University, visiting faculty at Keio University, consultant/news analyst for
the BBC World Service, St. Stephen’s College Alumni representative andAcademic Exchange Programs coordinator in Japan.

Japan SPOTLIGHT • January / February 202255