was the

Olympic flame The Olympic flame is a Olympic symbols, symbol used in the Olympic movement. It is also a symbol of continuity between ancient and modern games. The Olympic flame is lit at Olympia, Greece, several months before the Olympic Games. This ceremony s ...

torchbearer who lit the cauldron at the

1964 Summer Olympic Games The , officially the and commonly known as Tokyo 1964 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 10 to 24 October 1964 in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo had been awarded the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this honor was subsequ ...

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

Biography

Sakai was born on the day of the

atomic bombing of Hiroshima On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, during World War II. The aerial bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civil ...

. He was chosen for the role to symbolize Japan's postwar reconstruction and peace. An enthusiastic part-time athlete, at the time of the 1964 Olympics he was a member of

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

's running club. The nineteen-year-old was coached in the ceremonial duty by Teruji Kogake, a

triple jump The triple jump, sometimes referred to as the hop, step and jump or the hop, skip and jump, is a track and field event, similar to long jump. As a group, the two events are referred to as the "horizontal jumps". The competitor runs down the tr ...

world record-holder turned coach. He never actually competed in any events at the Olympics. Two years after the Olympics, he won a gold medal in the 4 × 400 m relay and a silver in the 400 m at the

1966 Asian Games The 1966 Asian Games, also known as the V Asiad or Bangkok 1966, were a continental multi-sport event that was held from 9 to 20 December 1966, in Bangkok, Thailand. A total of 142 events in 16 sports were contested by athletes during the games. T ...

. He joined

Fuji Television JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as or , is a Japanese television station that serves the Kantō region as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (FNS). The station is owned-and- ...

in 1968 as a journalist and worked mainly in the fields of news and sports. He died of cerebral bleeding in Tokyo at age 69, on September 10, 2014.

References

External links

* 1945 births 2014 deaths Athletics from Hiroshima Prefecture People of the Shōwa era Japanese male sprinters Japanese television journalists Olympic cauldron lighters Asian Games gold medalists for Japan Asian Games medalists in athletics (track and field) Asian Games silver medalists for Japan Athletes (track and field) at the 1966 Asian Games Medalists at the 1966 Asian Games Japan Championships in Athletics winners Waseda University alumni 20th-century Japanese sportsmen {{Japan-sprint-athletics-bio-stub