Japan. An 1964 XVIII Tokyo Summer Olympic Games Official Participant's Medal

In bronze gilt, obverse illustrating a woman in flowing robes, her left arm extended and holding a flaming torch in her hand, the Olympic Rings insignia and the date "1964" below, inscribed "XVIII OLYMPIAD TOKYO" at the right and engraver marked "HATA" behind the woman's right foot, reverse with a large branch of laurel leaves, inscribed in Japanese, along with the number "18" and the date "1964", 51.5 mm, encased in its original 57 mm protective plastic ring, extremely fine.

Footnote: The 1964 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVIII Olympiad was an international multi-sport event held in Tokyo, Japan, from October 10 to 24, 1964. Tokyo had been awarded the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this honour was subsequently passed to Helsinki because of Japan's invasion of China, before ultimately being canceled because of the Second World War. 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.) Tokyo was chosen as the host city during the 55th IOC Session in West Germany, on May 26, 1959. 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. The games were telecast to the United States using Syncom 3, the first geostationary communication satellite, and from there to Europe using Relay 1. These were also the first Olympic Games to have colour telecasts, albeit partially. Certain events like the sumo wrestling and judo matches, sports huge in Japan, were tried out using Toshiba's new color transmission system, but only for the domestic market. The games were scheduled for mid-October to avoid the city's midsummer heat and humidity and the September typhoon season. The 1964 Olympics were also the last to use a traditional cinder track for the track events. A smooth synthetic all-weather track was used for the first time at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City and at every Games thereafter.