Olympic Rewind: Looking back at the Tokyo 1964 Summer Olympics
Part two of our series looking back at past Olympic performances by Team Canada.
Welcome back to Olympic Rewind, a series here at True North where we’re looking back at past editions of the Olympic Games, highlighting the top Canadian athletes and stories.
In this volume, we’re going to focus on the 1964 Summer Olympic Games, held in Tokyo, Japan from October 10-24, 1964. These Olympics were the first held in Asia, 24 years after Tokyo was supposed to host the 1940 games which were cancelled due to World War Two.
This edition of the Olympic Games was also significant for broadcasting reasons — it was the first to be broadcast internationally without the need for tapes to be flown overseas, and was the first to be partially broadcast in colour, which it was for select events on Japanese television.
RELATED: Olympic Rewind: Looking back at the Paris 1924 Summer Olympics
Tokyo 1964 was the first of four Olympics to be held in Japan thus far, followed by the Sapporo 1972 and Nagano 1998 Winter Olympics, as well as the most recent Summer Olympics, Tokyo 2020 (held in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic).
This was also the last Olympic Games in which Canada used the Canadian Red Ensign as its flag, before adopting the current flag in 1965.
Canada didn’t send any athletes to the 1964 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, sending their first official Paralympic delegation to the 1968 games in Tel Aviv, Israel four years later.
Let’s dive into some of the major stories from Canada’s time at Tokyo 1964.
Highlights:
Canadian athletes sent: 115 (95 men, 20 women)
Opening ceremony flag bearer: Gil Boa (Shooting)
Medal tally: Four (one gold, two silver, one bronze)
Place on medal table: Tied for 22nd with Switzerland
Medallists:
Gold:
Canada’s lone gold medal in Tokyo came in rowing, in the men’s coxless pairs event. Canada’s duo of George Hungerford and Roger Jackson was competing in their first coxless pairs event together, but managed to beat the reigning Olympic champions Oleg Golovanov and Valentin Boreyko from the Soviet Union in the first round, booking their spot in the final with a first-place finish. The reigning European champions, Steven Blaisse and Ernst Veenemans of the Netherlands, won their first round heat by over five seconds, booking their spot in the final along with pairs from Denmark, Finland, Germany, and Great Britain — who all advanced from the repechage. In the final, Canada raced to the top of the podium in a time of 7:32.94, about half a second faster than the Dutch, with Germany coming in third. After their triumph in Tokyo, the pair shared the Northern Star Award (then known as the Lou Marsh Trophy) as Canada’s top athletes. Jackson would be Canada’s opening ceremony flag bearer in Mexico four years later and competed in the men’s single sculls event, and also competed in Munich in 1972 in coxless fours. He went on to serve as President of the Canadian Olympic Committee from 1982—1990.
Silver:
Bill Crothers won Canada’s first silver medal of Tokyo 1964, in the men’s 800m athletics event. Crothers won the third heat in a time of 1:47.3, earning himself a spot in the final, where he’d be taking on reigning champion Peter Snell, among others. Snell, New Zealand’s opening ceremony flag bearer, took gold again in Tokyo in a then-Olympic record time of 1:45.1, and also won a gold medal in the 1,500m event. Crothers finished second in the 800m, half a second back of Snell and four tenths of a second faster than Kenyan runner Wilson Kiprugut, who led for much of the race before Snell and Crothers passed him on the final lap. Crothers also competed in the 400m event, losing in the semifinals.
Canada’s other silver medal came in judo, won by Doug Rogers in the men’s heavyweight competition. After advancing from a three-person pool in the first round, beating both Chang Chung-huei of Taiwan and Salvador Goldschmied of Mexico, Rogers received a bye in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals he beat Parnaoz Chik'viladze of the Soviet Union by referee decision, known as kinsa. In the final, Rogers came up against Japanese judoka Isao Inokuma, who Rogers trained with in Japan, and in the final Inokuma won by decision. Rogers returned to Canada in 1965 and worked as a pilot for Air Canada, but competed at the Olympics again eight years later in Munich, where he was the opening ceremony flag bearer for Canada and managed to finish fifth in both the open and heavyweight classes despite his career slowing down due to judo being taken of the 1968 Olympic programme.
Bronze:
Harry Jerome won Canada’s lone bronze medal at Tokyo 1964, in the men’s 100m sprint event. Jerome won his heat in the first round, and won again in the quarterfinals and semifinals, cruising into the final. He saved his quickest race for last, running the final in 10.2 seconds, finishing third behind American Bob Hayes (who would later go on to win a Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys, the only athlete to win an Olympic gold and a Super Bowl ring), and Cuban Enrique Figuerola. In what was the second, and most successful, of his three trips to the Olympic Games, Jerome also finished fourth in the 200m event, the closest he’d ever come to a second Olympic medal. Jones is one of Canada’s greatest sprinters of all time, and set a total of seven world records throughout his career, including being one of few men to hold the 100 yard and 100 metre world records at the same time. Fifty-seven years after Jerome’s bronze in Tokyo, Andre De Grasse matched the feat in the same city, winning a bronze medal at Tokyo 2020.
Other Notable Performances
The following athletes reached the top five in their respective events, narrowly missing out on the Olympic podium.
4th place:
Harry Jerome (Athletics, men’s 200m)
Gil Boa (Shooting, men’s Small-Bore Rifle, Prone, 50 metres)
5th place:
Dianne Gerace (Athletics, women’s high jump)
Sandy Gilchrist (Swimming, men’s 400m individual medley)
Marion Lay (Swimming, women’s 100m freestyle)
Jane Hughes (Swimming, women’s 400m freestyle)
Bill Crothers — A Lasting Sporting Legacy
One of Canada’s greatest athletes of the 1960s, the height of Bill Crothers’ career was at Tokyo 1964 when he won an 800m Olympic silver medal, and finished half a second back of gold.
At the end of the year, Crothers received the Lionel Conacher Award as Canada’s top male athlete — one year after winning the 1963 Northern Star Award as Canada’s top athlete for running the two fastest 800 metre races of the year.
He also competed in the 400m event at Tokyo 1964, eliminated in the semifinals, and raced in the Olympics in Mexico City four years later, in the 4x400m relay, where Canada were eliminated in the first round. In between his two Olympic appearances, Crothers won a gold medal at the 1965 World University Games in the 800m event, a silver medal in the 4x400 yard relay at the 1966 Commonwealth Games, and two silver medals at the 1967 Pan American Games in the 800m and 4x400 metre relay events.
Crothers held the Canadian record in all distances from 400m to 1,500m at one point, and since retiring from competing has received numerous honours. He was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1965, Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1971, and Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1997.
His legacy continues to this day, thanks to Bill Crothers Secondary School, which opened in 2008 in Markham, Ontario — where Crothers was a pharmacist for many years, and served as a trustee and board chair for the York Region District School Board.
The school has a particular focus on sports and developing both athletes and students, and has been home to several elite Canadian athletes since opening its doors — including tennis star Bianca Andreescu, Stanley Cup champion Anthony Cirelli, Minnesota Timberwolves small forward Leonard Miller, Olympic figure skater Roman Sadovsky, and Olympic rugby player Andrew Coe, among many others.
Crothers, who is now 83 years old, made an impact on both Canadian athletics and the 800m race as a whole in the 1960s. Sixty years after his greatest moment on the international stage, his legacy continues, and will for many years to come.
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