Athletics at the 1964 Summer Olympics

The 1964 Olympics were awarded to Tokyo, Japan, which hoped to use the Games as a coming out party to show the world it had recovered from World War II. The Japanese spent lavishly on the Games, with per capita costs per athlete higher than any Games before or since, measured in constant dollars. Signifying where they had been, the final torch bearer was a Japanese runner, Yoshinori Sakai, who had been born in Hiroshima on the day the atomic bomb immolated that city. The star of the Games on the track was Peter Snell, the New Zealand middle distance runner. He had won the 800 metres in 1960 in something of an upset, but was by 1964 the best miler in the world. He chose to run both the 800 and 1,500 and won both races rather comfortably. The other double winner was Soviet Tamara Press in the shot put and discus. There were several repeat winners, in addition to Snell in the 800. Al Oerter won his third consecutive discus gold medal, despite being injured and competing in pain. Józef Szmidt (POL) defended his triple jump title, and Abebe Bikila (ETH) again won the marathon. Australian Betty Cuthbert had won the 100 and 200 in Melbourne in 1956. She was back and moved up a bit to win the 400 metres, contested by women for the first time. She narrowly defeated Britain’s Ann Packer, who moved up to the 800 and won in world record time. The biggest upsets occurred in the distance races. Americans had rarely performed well in these but they won both the 5K and 10K. Bob Schul in the 5,000 was not unexpected as he was a top runner with an outstanding kick. But in the 10K, Billy Mills won what may still be considered the biggest upset in Olympic track & field history. Australian world record holder Ron Clarke finished third behind Mills, and was later asked if he had been worried about Mills, “Worried about him? I never heard of him.”