DHis conclusion sounds sobering. “These two Olympic weeks set 28 world records, but there has never been and no place to jump from the audience to the contestants, which prompted them to achieve the highest performance.” The German News Agency commented on this game. Olympic Games The large-scale event held in Tokyo in 1964 was characterized by the Japanese introverted mentality, usually immature audiences, precise but rigid organization and unmanageable scale. The Olympic Village alone had more than 8,000 people. All of this seriously damages the overall impression: “The biggest sports festival in the world is no longer what it should be, no longer a celebration of friendship and understanding, but more competition for medals.”
The FAZ reporter is obviously not very enthusiastic about the Tokyo Olympics. “The obsession with preparing to surpass everything in the past, to make it bigger, more beautiful, and more important, of course not only serves the higher glory of the game. In the past two weeks, it is clear that the country needs to interact with all these to a great extent. Relevant acknowledgment. The achievements are not proud of moderate complacency. Few people ignore that it provides the greatest thing ever: the most important game ever, the best institution ever established, The highest level of national participation, it is obsessed with the highest level.” So after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, many people have a wish that sounds familiar 56 years later: they want the competition to be smaller and the environment to be more gentle. “What is the use of the biggest and most expensive game?” FAZ said on October 27, 1964. “If the heart is not involved, what is the use of a unique and perfect performance?”
There is no room for spontaneity and flexibility
At that time, of course, everyone’s heart was not out of the way. Of course not Hans-Joachim Klein. Klein, then 24, was one of the best freestyle swimmers in the world in 1964. He came to Tokyo to win medals and possibly even the Olympics. Cool atmosphere, need national recognition, and soulless medal hunting? Klein felt differently. “People’s enthusiasm is huge,” he said. “My impression is that the whole of Japan is very happy to host the Olympics. The people are really proud of it.”
The technological achievements are impressive, from the ultra-modern trains from the airport to the city, the high-speed Shinkansen trains, satellite transmissions around the world, and electronic timing pads for swimming. But in Tokyo, Klein also experienced how the seemingly perfect plan leaves little room for spontaneity and flexibility, and how suggestions and requests for change fail: “You always just smile friendly and say’no’ .”
