The1940Summer Olympics, officially known as theGames of the XII Olympiad, was a planned internationalmulti-sport event scheduled to have been held from 21 September to 6 October 1940, inTokyo City,Japan, and later rescheduled for 20 July to 4 August 1940, inHelsinki,Finland following the outbreak of theSecond Sino-Japanese War in 1937. They were ultimately cancelled because ofWorld War II alongside the1940 Winter Olympics inSapporo, Japan, and were the third games to be cancelled due to war.

Games of the XII Olympiad

Poster for the 1940 Games, when they were scheduled to be held in Tokyo
Location	Tokyo City,Japan Helsinki,Finland
Stadium	Meiji Jingu Gaien Stadium Helsingin Olympiastadion
Summer ← Berlin 1936 London 1948 → London 1944 → Winter ← Garmisch 1936 ←Sapporo 1940 St. Moritz 1948 → Cortina 1944 →

Helsinki would eventually host the1952 Summer Olympics. Tokyo would also later host the1964 and2020 Summer Olympics, the latter being postponed to 2021 due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.

The campaign to choose a city for 1940 began in 1932, withBarcelona,Rome,Helsinki, and Tokyo participating. Tokyo city officials suggested a campaign as a means of international diplomacy following Japan's alienation from theLeague of Nations due to theMukden Incident, in which Japan occupied Manchuria and created the puppet state ofManchukuo.

While both Tokyo officials andInternational Olympic Committee (IOC) representatives were behind the campaign, the national government, which was ever more interested in military matters, did not have any strong supporters for such a diplomatic gesture.^[1] In 1936, Tokyo was chosen in a surprise move, making it the first non-Western city to win an Olympic bid.

During the1930 Far Eastern Games in Tokyo, Indian participants were spotted flying the flag of their independence movement rather than theflag of British India. This caused a complaint from theBritish Olympic Association. In 1934, Japan attempted to invite European colonies to theFar Eastern Games.^[2]

The main stadium was initially to be theMeiji Jingu Gaien Stadium — later used at the1964 Summer Olympics — reconstructed to accommodate 100,000 spectators; however, the Shrines Bureau ofHome Ministry, which had jurisdiction over theMeiji Jingu precinct, strongly opposed the reconstruction. Subsequently, a new stadium was planned at theKomazawa Olympic Park, away from the city center. The Olympic Village was to be built on the present sites ofKinuta Park or Todoroki Gorge. A schedule was drawn up, and guidelines were printed in four languages. Monthly magazines and posters were printed and distributed internationally. Construction began on some buildings, and arrangements were made with hotels, travel agents, and airlines for easy access.^[3]

When theSecond Sino-Japanese War broke out on 7 July 1937,Ichirō Kōno, a member of theImperial Diet (legislature), immediately requested that the Olympics be forfeited.^[4] The1938 Far Eastern Games were also canceled, but Japan's IOC delegates persisted under a belief that the war would soon be over.^[5] Amid the intensification of the war, the feasibility of both the Summer Olympics and the1940 Winter Olympics grew increasingly questionable to other countries, who suggested a different site be chosen and spoke of the possibility of boycotting the Games were they to proceed in Japan.^[6]

In March 1938,Kanō Jigorō, then-IOC member who also represented Japanese Olympic Committee, provided reassurances to the IOC at the organization'sCairo conference that Tokyo would still be able to serve as the host city. However, many Diet members in Japan had already openly questioned hosting the Olympics in wartime, and the military was demanding that the organizers build the venues from wood because they needed metals for the war front.^[7] In July, a legislative session was held to decide the matters of the Summer and Winter Olympics and the planned 1940World's Fair all at once. The World's Fair was only "postponed", under a belief that Japan would be able to wrap up the war, but the Olympics could not be moved and were canceled.^[8]

Kōichi Kido, who would later be instrumental in thesurrender of Japan in 1945, announced the forfeiture on 16 July 1938. He closed his speech saying, "When peace reigns again in the Far East, we can then invite the Games to Tokyo and take that opportunity to prove to the people of the world the true Japanese spirit."^[3] This would come to pass in1964.

Despite the cancellation of the 1940 Olympics, the Tokyo organizing committee released its budget for the Games. In a departure from standard practice, the budget included all capital outlays as well as direct organizing costs. The total budget was¥20.1 million, one-third of which would have been paid by the Tokyo metropolitan government.^[9]

The IOC then awarded the Games toHelsinki, Finland, the city that had been the runner-up in the original bidding process. The Games were then scheduled to be staged from 20 July to 4 August 1940. In December 1939, however, it was announced by IOC PresidentCount Henri Baillet-Latour that the games were cancelled, as revealed inBrussels.^[10] The Olympics were suspended indefinitely following the outbreak of World War II (theWinter War in particular) and did not resume until theLondon Games of 1948.

With the Olympics canceled, the major international athletics event of the year turned out to be the annualFinland-Sweden Athletics International, held at the newHelsinki Olympic Stadium, exceptionally held as a triple international amongFinland,Sweden andGermany.

Gliding was due to be an Olympic sport in the 1940 Games after ademonstration at theBerlin Games in 1936.^[11][12] The sport has not been featured in any Games since, though the glider designed for it, theDFS Olympia Meise, was produced in large numbers after the war.

Meanwhile, Japan hosted the1940 East Asian Games in Tokyo, with six participating nations. Helsinki eventually held the1952 Summer Olympics, while Tokyo held the1964 Summer Olympics and the2020 Summer Olympics, although the later event was postponed to 2021 due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.^[13]

During August 1940, prisoners of war celebrated a "special Olympics" called theInternational Prisoner-of-War Olympic Games atStalag XIII-A inLangwasser, nearNuremberg, Germany. An Olympic flag, 29 by 46 cm in size, was made of a Polish prisoner's shirt and, drawn in crayon, it featured the Olympic rings and banners for Belgium, France, Great Britain, Norway, Poland, and the Netherlands. A feature film,Olimpiada '40, produced by the directorAndrzej Kotkowski in 1980 tells the story of these games and of one of the prisoners of war, Teodor Niewiadomski.^[14]

After the successful invention of the torch relay in Nazi Germany four years earlier, the proposed method of bringing theOlympic Flame from Greece to Japan was proposed by air delivery, in thepurpose-builtMesserschmitt Me 261Adolfine long-range aircraft, which was designed to have a maximum range of some 11,024 km (6,850 mi) unrefueled.^[15]

• Olympic Games abandoned due to war
  • 1916 Summer Olympics
  • 1940 Summer Olympics
  • 1940 Winter Olympics
  • 1944 Summer Olympics
  • 1944 Winter Olympics
• List of IOC country codes
• 1964 Summer Olympics
• The first, and to date only, Olympics to be postponed rather than cancelled.
  • 2020 Summer Olympics

• Official preliminary report. In EnglishArchived 26 June 2008 at theWayback Machine

• International Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 24, 2007, No. 8,Special Issue: The Missing Olympics: The 1940 Tokyo Games, Japan, Asia and the Olympic Movement