SAYONARA OLYMPICS

Evening Star, Issue 23100, 28 October 1938, Page 16

SAYONARA OLYMPICS

JAPAN RENOUNCES GAMES ASSISTANCE TO FINLAND At the Cairo meeting in March, 1938, the International Olympic Committee finally decided to celebrate the twelfth Olympic Games in Tokio. The responsibiiity, however, for successfully carrying through these games was given to the Japanese Organising Gommittee. And the committee was able to keep faith concerning the tuture, since the host-city of Tokio, as well as the Government, had placed all necessary achievements at its disposal. Construction plans considering the experience of former Olympiads advanced steadily. The rowing course was under construction and the work for the cycling stadium had begun already. Students rendered help by a voluntary labour service, since in Japan—more than in any other country perhaps—the entire youth was hopefully longing for these first Olympic Games in Asia. But fat© was against us (says the Japanese ‘Olympic News,’ of iokio). At July 15 the Cabinet decided to advise the Organising Committee to cancel all preparation work. At the present time in Japan it is the Government which has to decide upon the necessities of the nation. And the Japanese work together like one man, fighting for the one aim, whether often pointed out by the Government, viz., restoration of peace in the Far Last. The withdrawal of the Government s help decided the fate of twelfth Olympic Games in Tokio, 1340. The Organising Committee had only to fulfil the sad duty of officially returning the games to the International Olympic Committee. . , , , . . All hope for 1940 is lost, but not the desire and the right of the Japanese sport, once to celebrate the Olympic Games in Tokio and, following the late Baron Coubertin’s to lighten the Olympic torch in the Far East. One decision put an end to the work of two years. Out of the down-heart-edness, however, new plans were born, proofs of the true and genuine and sport-minded spirit tof the Japanese youth and their leaders. The organising material was immediately placed at disposal of and sent to Helsinki. The’Japanese Organising Committee is offering its hearty cooperation for carrying through of the games in Finland, so that the committee in Helsinki can start its difficult task where the Japanese committee had to leave it. The material will be taken to Helsinki by the technical adviser of the International Olympic Committee. Japan’s National Olympic Committee, proving its fair and sportsmanlike spirit, decided all events to take part with a strong team in the twelfth Olympic Games. And the host-city—-having striven since 1932 to be granted the games for Tokio, and after actively supporting all the preparations, immediately decided to renew the invitation for a later date. Thus, new activity is bom in times of emergency. But neither personal disappointment nor blighted hope in Japan and all over the world, in fact, nothing can stop Coubertin’s work on its glorious way through the world. For the moment this work was only interrupted in Tokio, when it was just rising high. If somebody had worked in close cooperation with Japan’s sportsmen, as I did for more than a year, he would loathe to leave the people and his task, interrupted by force mnjeure. But he will never give up the dream, once to see the Olympic fire lighted in Tokio. For if there are participants in the Olympic Games who deserve once to receive the youth of the world as guests in their own country, than the Japanese sportsmen, whose victorious, sportminded, and modest attitude have made nothing but sound friends since Stockholm, 1912.—Sayonara Olympia; 1940, in Tokio I