SOAS Research Online

Abstract

At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the Japanese women’s volleyball won the gold medal, which in many ways can be viewed as an epoch-making event in Japanese post-war sporting history. I explore the background to that victory, revealing a corporate history of the sport with a prominent role played by Japanese cotton textile companies. I argue that gold medal success at the 1964 Olympics is the result of a history of corporate investment in women’s volleyball, in particular by one company, Nichibō Corporation, and I tell the Olympic story with a focus on the personal recollections of the women’s volleyball team captain, Kasai Masae. Finally, I evaluate the impact that Olympic victory had on the popularity and strength of women’s volleyball in Japan in the decades after 1964.