2020 Tokyo Olympics

Tokyo Olympics - 2020

Japan hosted the 2020 Summer Olympics from 23 July to 8 August 2021. The games were originally scheduled to take place from 24 July to 9 August 2020 but had to be postponed due to the global COVID epidemic, although the event still retained the Tokyo 2020 branding.

The 2020 Olympics featured 339 events in thirty three different sports, encompassing a total of 49 disciplines. Karate, Sport Climbing, Surfing and Skateboarding made their Olympics debuts.

The 2020 Olympics was largely held behind closed doors with no public spectators admitted due to the COVID pandemic. This has made Tokyo 2020 Olympics memorabilia including Olympics tickets very difficult to find.

The official programme has 184 pages and is written all in Japanese with only eleven pages with advertisements. It begins by discussing the Tokyo 2020 medal designs, there are then sections on 'One World' discussing the COVID pandemic and its impact on sports, introductions from the Olympic President, the Organising Committee, the Japan PM and the Governor of Tokyo. There then follows sections on the 'Passing of the Torch' and the 'Road to Tokyo' including brief details on past Summer Olympics. There are then contributions from more dignitaries followed by 'Best of the Best' - the star athletes in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The main part of the programme then covers the different venues and sports for the Olympics. The programme then discusses the Olympic torch design and the Miraitowa Robot. The next section is 'Olympic Numbers' - with various Olympic records and the programme ends with a discussion of the four sports making their Olympics debuts - Karate, Sport Climbing, Surfing and Skateboarding.

49 different styles of tickets were issued for the different disciplines, as well as tickets for both the opening and closing ceremonies. Tickets were issued in four different colours - red, blue, purple and green. I have just started to collect these tickets although it is proving to be quite challenging. The nine I have collected so far are shown below. I also have four Tokyo 2020 Olympic Official Hospitality packs covering the finals of the baseball and basketball, and two athletics evening events, the second of which included the mens 100 metres (shown below).