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³ Chalkley, B. and Essex, S., ‘Urban development through hosting international events: a history of the Olympic Games’, Planning Perspectives, 14 (1999), 369–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Liao, H. and Pitts, A., ‘A brief historical review of Olympic urbanization’, International Journal for the History of Sport, 23 (2006), 1232–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Juridically, the tennô did not act as head of state when speaking the opening formula, as this might have caused counter-reactions by the socialists or communists. He was simply acting as patron of the Olympic Games. But this subtle differentiation was most likely not understood by the audience in Japan or worldwide, who surely were affirmed that the tennô actually was the head of state when watching the opening ceremony. See Tagsold, ‘The Tokyo Olympics as a token’, 116.

⁵ These keywords were taken from Gold, J. and Gold, M. (eds.), Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning and the World's Games, 1896–2012 (London, 2007)Google Scholar.

⁶ Some of the other main facilities, like the Komazawa Stadium in Setagaya, were set up in other wards of Tokyo because the Shinjuku/Shibuya area did not provide enough space for all venues. Still most major events like the opening and closing ceremony of the Games took place in Shinjuku or Shibuya.

⁷ For a good account of this, see Hardacre, H., Shinto and the State: 1868–1988 (Princeton, 1991)Google Scholar.

⁸ Irie, K., ‘Kindai no tennô-sei to meijijingukyôgitaikai’ (The modern Tenno-system and the Meiji Shrine Sports Days), in Yanô, K. (ed.), Undôkai to nihon kindai (Sports Days and Modern Japan) (Tokyo, 1999), 157–98Google Scholar.

⁹ Ibid., 164.

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¹¹ Collins, S., The 1940 Tokyo Games: The Missing Olympics. Japan, the Asian Olympics and the Olympic Movement (London, 2007), 112–23Google Scholar. See also The Organizing Committee of the XIIth Olympiad Tokyo 1940, Report of the Organizing Committee on its Work for the XIIth Olympics Games of 1940 in Tokyo until the Relinquishement (Tokyo, 1940), 51–81Google Scholar.

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¹³ While Mexico City and Seoul have been scarcely touched upon in various books and papers regarding space and architecture, Beijing has been so well documented that listing all references would extend to writing a bibliography. One of the most insightful accounts is given by Brownell, S., Beijing's Games: What the Olympics Mean to China (Lanham, 2008), 97–128Google Scholar. For a rare account of Mexico City see M. Barke, ‘Mexico City 1968’, in Gold and Gold (eds.), Olympic Cities, 183–96.

¹⁴ Tagsold, ‘The Tokyo Olympics as a token’, 125.

¹⁵ Kami is often translated as ‘god’. But this would evoke false connotations, especially when speaking of a living tennô, who is also a kami, as a ‘living god’. A kami is a kind of divine ancestor, whose benevolence is important for shaping presence. In the case of tennô, as spiritual head of shintô religion and – from the mid-nineteenth century to 1945 – Father of the Nation, they are already kami alive.

¹⁶ Coaldrake, W.H., Architecture and Authority in Japan (London, 1996), 261Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Chalkley and Essex, ‘Urban development’, 374.

¹⁸ Ibid.; Liao and Pitts, ‘A brief historical review’.

¹⁹ Sakurai, T., Shisô toshite no 60-nendai (The 60s as Ideology) (Tokyo, 1993), 32Google Scholar. Igarashi came to a similiar conclusion on the symbolic meaning of urban developement regarding self-purification: Igarashi, Y., Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945–1970 (Princeton, 2000), 150–3Google Scholar.

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²² Ibid., 76.

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²⁸ See their contribution to this issue. See also Young, C., ‘Munich 1972. Re-presenting the nation’, in Tomlinson, A. and Young, C. (eds.), National Identity and Global Sports Events. Culture, Politics, and Spectacle in the Olympics and the Football World Cup (Albany, 2006), 117–32Google Scholar, and Balbier, Kalter Krieg, 230–5.

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³² Shintarô Ishihara started as a novelist before turning to politics in the late 1960s. As a hawk in international affairs he advocated a Japanese boycott of the Beijing Olympics 2008.