Lost Games

This chapter highlights the FESPIC Movement's place in Japan's history of disability sports. It explores FESPIC's relationship with the Paralympic Movement and the FESPIC Federation's absorption by the new Asian Paralympic Committee (APC), which serves as an important reminder that the development of the Paralympic organizations was never a forgone conclusion. It also talks about how FESPIC Games posed challenges to the larger Paralympic Movement that fostered important changes in the process. The chapter analyzes the establishment of the APC, which offered a case study of regional efforts to come to terms with the emerging International Olympic Committee/International Paralympic Committee (IOC/IPC) juggernaut in international sports. It cites the formal integration with the IPC that proved increasingly unavoidable for organizations like FESPIC.

Japan’s “Cradle of Disability Sports”

This chapter investigates how Ōita's seemingly anomalous prominence in the world of wheelchair marathons came about and what it has meant to Ōita, its people, and athletes with disabilities. It elaborates how the Ōita Prefecture had become known as Japan's “cradle of disability sports,” a reputation that was attained through Dr. Nakamura Yutaka's work with the Paralympics and FESPIC. It also explains how Nakamura played an important role in the establishment of Ōita's marathon, considering his motivations and methods for launching another international sports event for those with disabilities. The chapter talks about the marathon and how it was established in response to intersecting international, local, and personal forces. It reviews how the marathon has benefited from sustained local government support, which made it an ideal site for exploring how and why disability sports have been leveraged for local gains in Ōita.

Tokyo’s Other Games

This chapter recounts how Japan became the third country, and the first outside Europe, to host the Paralympic Games in 1964. It reviews official and institutional reports, and general overviews of the Tokyo Paralympics that focus almost exclusively on key organizers whose vision and effort helped overcome various obstacles to bring the Paralympics to Japan. It also considers events leading up to the Games that reveal a more complex picture involving intersecting personal local, national, and transnational actors and motivations, which culminated in intense pressure to hold the Games in Tokyo immediately following the Summer Olympics. The chapter discusses the representations of athletes participating in the 1964 Tokyo Paralympics who share several similarities with those from recent disability sports events. It provides an analysis of the materials associated with the 1964 Games that offer insights that go beyond adding a “non-Western” perspective.