The ancient Olympic games, which were held every four years as now for a millenium from 776 BC until 395 AD, were a forum of competition for the mankind to mutually compete and enjoy in a variety of ways. Such Olympic games are a unique connection between the ancient and the modern times. The modern Olympic games were held for the first time in Athens, Greece, in 1896 and the 32nd Tokyo Olympic Games will be held in 2020. After Japan experienced the great earthquake in 1923 and lost the second World War, Tokyo was the first to attract the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964 in Asia, where 19 games were held, with 94 countries and 6,318 athletes participated, thereby becoming an opportunity to inform the world about the high speed growth and strength of the post war Japan.
In particular, Japan, which has grown into an economic powerhouse and which is standing in the center of the international political arena, has endeavored to make the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games as the ones attracting greater attention from the world than any other host country in history. Among such endeavors, Japan intended to raise its stature as the host country of the larger and successful games by adding games. Of the games, Karate was a traditional Japanese martial art, which was first introduced from Okinawa to the main islands of Japan in 1917. Thereafter, in 1922, as the Ministry of Education hosted an ancient martial art exhibition in which Karate participated, and as Keio University and Waseda University founded Karate departments, Karate developed into a martial art culture of Japan.
Thereafter, Karate has become globalized by the spectacular performance and leadership of Oyama Masters, in which process the Japanese society escaped from the ruins of the war and achieved prosperity and success drawing attention from the world. Furthermore, the spirit of martial art through Karate has brought the Japanese people together, and Karate became the spirit of the Japanese people.
For these reasons, Japan has wanted Karate to become an official game for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
While 26 games were held at the 30th London Olympic Games in 2012 and 28 official games were held at the 31st Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2016, including golf and rugby, but Japan has successfully enabled adopting Karate as an official Olympic game, and by including surfing, skateboarding, sports climbing, baseball and softball, the number of official games grew to 33 in total.
The modern Olympic games are also used to strengthen national interests, international status, and pride of the nation rather than promoting the understanding of international peace and harmony of mankind.
In particular, Karate had faced difficulties in being adopted as a formal game since it was a similar game to Taekwondo of Korea, but since Japan was able to decide on which games to add through the “Olympic Agenda 2020,” the Tokyo Olympic Games Organizing Committee nominated additional candidates of official games for pentathlon to the IOC in September 2013 and acquired approval of the executive committee for the finalization at the general assembly.
Accordingly, this study will examine the process of changes for the Olympic games and what process the Japanese Karate underwent to be adopted for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games as an official game. In particular, it will be helpful to understand what impact it will have on the martial art sport after the Tokyo Olympic Games and the flow of sports diplomacy as Karate is adopted as an official Olympic game representing the Japanese martial arts.