Across the course of his Olympic career, Baron Pierre de Coubertin strove to make the Olympic Games universal.  In his effort to promote sport everywhere, he wanted the doors of international Olympic competition open to everyone—and believed that his great mission of building friendship and peace through sport around the world would be realized as more and more countries hosted the Games.  That was the point he made in an interview recorded by the French journalist André Lang in 1936 about the next Olympics, which were then scheduled for Tokyo in 1940.  While this interview became infamous in France for the baron’s defense of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games—in response to Lang’s claim that Olympism was dead—Coubertin was looking ahead here to the first Games in Asia and defending the principle that the mission of the Olympic Movement was to cultivate sport in every country on earth.  The 1940 Games were ultimately cancelled due to war, but the dream of hosting remained alive in Japan until 1964 when Tokyo finally had the opportunity to welcome the world. And now, of course, the world is looking forward to the celebration of a second Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 2020.

From “The Games in Tokyo in 1940?” by André Lang, Le Journal, 1936

Photo:  1964 Tokyo Olympic Games Opening Ceremony