The anticipated
1940 Summer Olympics, officially known as the
Games of the XII Olympiad and originally scheduled to be held from September 21 to October 6 1940, in
Tokyo, officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and is located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū. The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, cover the area that was once the city of Tokyo in the eastern part of the prefecture, totaling over 8 million people....
,
JapanThe Empire of Japan was a Japanese political entity that existed during the period from the...
, were cancelled due to the outbreak of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Tokyo was stripped of its host status for the Games by the
IOCThe International Olympic Committee is an organization based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas on 23 June 1894. Its membership consists of the 205 National Olympic Committees....
after the renunciation by the Japanese of the IOC's Cairo Conference of 1938, due to the outbreak of the
Second Sino-Japanese WarThe Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany and the Soviet Union...
.
The anticipated
1940 Summer Olympics, officially known as the
Games of the XII Olympiad and originally scheduled to be held from September 21 to October 6 1940, in
Tokyo, officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and is located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū. The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, cover the area that was once the city of Tokyo in the eastern part of the prefecture, totaling over 8 million people....
,
JapanThe Empire of Japan was a Japanese political entity that existed during the period from the...
, were cancelled due to the outbreak of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Tokyo was stripped of its host status for the Games by the
IOCThe International Olympic Committee is an organization based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas on 23 June 1894. Its membership consists of the 205 National Olympic Committees....
after the renunciation by the Japanese of the IOC's Cairo Conference of 1938, due to the outbreak of the
Second Sino-Japanese WarThe Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany and the Soviet Union...
. The
government of JapanThe Empire of Japan was a Japanese political entity that existed during the period from the...
had abandoned its support for the 1940 Games in July 1938. The IOC then awarded the Games to
HelsinkiHelsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the southern part of Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, by the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it the most populous municipality in Finland by a wide margin...
,
FinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland
, is a Nordic country and democracy situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland...
, the runner-up in the original bidding process. The Games were then scheduled to be staged from July 20 to August 4 1940. The Olympic Games were suspended indefinitely following the outbreak of World War II and did not resume until the
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
Games of
1948The 1948 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in London, United Kingdom. After a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, these were the first Summer Olympics since the 1936 Games in Berlin...
.
With the Olympics cancelled, the major international athletics event of the year turned out to be the annual
Finland-Sweden athletics internationalFinnkampen , Suomi-Ruotsi-maaottelu or Ruotsi-ottelu , is a yearly athletics international competition held between Sweden and Finland since 1925.It is, since the late 1980s, the only annual athletics...
, held at the new
Helsinki Olympic StadiumThe Helsinki Olympic Stadium , located in the Töölö district about from the center of the Finnish capital Helsinki, is the largest stadium in the country, nowadays mainly used for hosting sports events and big concerts. The stadium is best known for being the center of activities in the 1952...
, exceptionally held as a triple international among
FinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland
, is a Nordic country and democracy situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland...
,
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
and
GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
.
GlidingGliding is a recreational activity and competitive sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders using rising air to gain altitude or speed. The word soaring is also used for the sport...
was due to be an Olympic sport in the 1940 Games after a
demonstrationA demonstration sport is a sport which is played to promote itself, most commonly during the Olympic Games, but also at other sporting events.Demonstration sports were officially introduced in 1912 Summer Olympics, when Sweden decided to include glima, traditional Scandinavian wrestling, in the...
at the
Berlin.Gliding at the 1936 Summer Olympics was a demonstration sport. The sport of gliding had been developed in Germany in the 1920s but had spread widely by 1936, allowing an international demonstration to the International Olympic Committee ....
Games in 1936. The sport has not been featured in any Games since, though the glider designed for it, the
DFS Olympia MeiseThe DFS Olympia Meise was a German sailplane designed by the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug for Olympic competition, based on the DFS Meise....
was produced in large numbers after the war.
Helsinki eventually held the
1952 Summer OlympicsThe 1952 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Helsinki, Finland in 1952...
and Tokyo the
1964 Summer OlympicsThe 1964 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Tokyo, Japan in 1964. Tokyo had been awarded with the organisation of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this honor was subsequently passed to Helsinki because of Japan's...
.
Despite the cancellation of the 1940 Olympics, the Tokyo organizing committee released its budget for the Games. In a departure from standard practice, the budget included all capital outlays as well as direct organizing costs. The total budget was
¥The is the currency of Japan. It is the third most-traded currency in the foreign exchange market after United States dollar and the euro. It is also widely used as a reserve currency after the U.S. dollar, the euro and the pound sterling...
20.1 million, one-third of which was paid for by the Tokyo metropolitan government.
During August 1940, prisoners of war celebrated a "special Olympics" called
International Prisoner-of-War Olympic Games. These were inaugurated and celebrated in
stalagIn Germany, Stalag was a term used for prisoner-of-war camps. Stalag is an abbreviation for "Stammlager", itself a short form of the full name "Mannschaftsstamm- und Straflager".- Legal definitions :...
number XIII-A in Langwasser close to Nuremberg, Germany. An Olympic flag 29 by 46 cm in size was made of a Polish prisoner’s shirt and, drawn in crayon, it featured the Olympic rings and banners for Belgium, France, Great Britain, Norway, Poland, Russia and Yugoslavia. A feature film was produced by the director A. Kotkowski in 1979 called
Olimpiada 40 telling the story of these games and one of the prisoners of war, Teodor Niewiadomski.
See also
- 1916 Summer Olympics
The anticipated 1916 Summer Olympics, which were to be officially known as the Games of the VI Olympiad, were to have been held in Berlin, Germany.-History:...
- 1940 Winter Olympics
The anticipated 1940 Winter Olympics, which would have been officially known as the V Olympic Winter Games, were to be celebrated in 1940 in Sapporo, Japan.The games were cancelled due to the onset of World War II...
- 1944 Winter Olympics
The anticipated 1944 Winter Olympics, which would have been officially known as the V Olympic Winter Games , were to be celebrated in February 1944 in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy...
- 1944 Summer Olympics
The anticipated 1944 Summer Olympics, which were to be officially known as the Games of the XIII Olympiad, were cancelled due to World War II...
Further reading
- International Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 24, 2007, No. 8, Special Issue: The Missing Olympics: The 1940 Tokyo Games, Japan, Asia and the Olympic Movement
External links