Olympic Games in Tokyo, Czechoslovakia

Might be a too obvious O, but not much else came to my mind... and I do like this set of stamps issued by the back then Czechoslovakia, on 26 October 1963, commemorating the Summer Olympic Games that took place in Tokyo the following year from 10-26th October - strange to have summer Olympics in October, regardless in which hemisphere of the world they are held.

The 1964 Summer Games were the first Olympics held in Asia, and the first time South Africa was barred from taking part due to its apartheid system in sports.(South Africa was, however, allowed to compete at the 1964 Summer Paralympics, also held in Tokyo, where it made its Paralympic Games debut.) These games were also the first to be telecast internationally without the need for tapes to be flown overseas, as they had been for the 1960 Olympics four years earlier.

A number of the sport disciplines are represented, starting from cannoeing, volleyball, wrestling, basketball, boxing, and my favorite out of these - gymnastics.

The top three nations who have left home with medals are USA (90 medals in total, out of which 36 gold), then USSR - six more than USA on the overall but also 6 less gold medals, and Japan, with a total of 29 medals, out of which 16 were gold. That is quite a striking difference in numbers between the first two, and then Japan being third.



Check out the other O's at today's Sunday Stamps edition.