was the

Olympic flame The Olympic flame is a symbol used in the Olympic movement. It is also a symbol of continuity between ancient and modern games. Several months before the Olympic Games, the Olympic flame is lit at Olympia, Greece. This ceremony starts the Olymp ...

torchbearer who lit the cauldron at the 1964 Summer Olympic Games in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

Biography

Sakai was born on the day of the

atomic bombing of Hiroshima The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...

. He was chosen for the role to symbolize Japan's postwar reconstruction and peace. An enthusiastic part-time athlete, at the time of the 1964 Olympics he was a member of

Waseda University , mottoeng = Independence of scholarship , established = 21 October 1882 , type = Private , endowment = , president = Aiji Tanaka , city = Shinjuku , state = Tokyo , country = Japan , students = 47,959 , undergrad = 39,382 , postgrad ...

's running club. The nineteen-year-old was coached in the ceremonial duty by Teruji Kogake, a

triple jump The triple jump, sometimes referred to as the hop, step and jump or the hop, skip and jump, is a track and field event, similar to the long jump. As a group, the two events are referred to as the "horizontal jumps". The competitor runs down th ...

world record-holder turned coach. He never actually competed in any events at the Olympics. Two years after the Olympic games, he won a gold medal in the 4 × 400 m relay and a silver in the 400 m at the 1966 Asian Games. He joined

Fuji Television JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as and colloquially known as CX, is a Japanese television station based in Odaiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Owned and operated by the it is the key station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network S ...

in 1968 as a journalist and worked mainly in the fields of news and sports. He died of cerebral bleeding in Tokyo at age 69, on September 10, 2014.

References

External links

* 1945 births 2014 deaths Sportspeople from Hiroshima Prefecture People of Shōwa-period Japan Japanese male sprinters Japanese television journalists Olympic cauldron lighters Asian Games gold medalists for Japan Asian Games medalists in athletics (track and field) Asian Games silver medalists for Japan Athletes (track and field) at the 1966 Asian Games Medalists at the 1966 Asian Games Japan Championships in Athletics winners Waseda University alumni {{Japan-athletics-bio-stub