‘When Sport Met Ideology and Colonial Bitter Memories’: The Impact of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics on North and South Korean Sports

The Tokyo Olympics held in 1964 opened the floodgates for a sporting rivalry between North and South Korea at the height of the Cold War. Although this keen competition would not take place on the field, the two Koreas carried out an ‘ideological battle’ to woo the Korean community in Japan, who were split by the pro-North Korean organization and the pro-South Korean organization. Deeply discontented by the ban imposed on a North Korean star athlete, the North Korean contingent withdrew from the Olympics at the last minute. Meanwhile, South Korea had the best record in its Olympic history at Tokyo, but this sporting accomplishment was completely dwarfed by the startling success of its former colonizer. In the wake of the Olympics, the public antagonism towards Japan reached its climax, mainly due to the treaty between Japan and South Korea in which the South Korean government sought to receive economic assistance rather than an official apology from Japan. Under these circumstances, the two Koreas would gear up for imminent sporting wars against each other and against Japan and the Western capitalist countries by restructuring their elite sports system under the banners of Chuche ideology in North and anti-communism coupled with anti-Japanese sentiments in South.