Japan at the 1936 Summer Olympics

Japan at the
1936 Summer Olympics
Japan at the; 1936 Summer Olympics
IOC code	JPN
NOC	Japanese Olympic Committee
Website	www.joc.or.jp (in Japanese and English)
in Berlin
Competitors	179
Flag bearer	Kenkichi Oshima
Medals ; Ranked 8th	Gold6Silver4Bronze8Total18
Summer Olympics appearances (overview)
	1912 ; 1920 ; 1924 ; 1928 ; 1932 ; 1936 ; 1948; 1952 ; 1956 ; 1960 ; 1964 ; 1968 ; 1972 ; 1976 ; 1980; 1984 ; 1988 ; 1992 ; 1996 ; 2000 ; 2004 ; 2008 ; 2012 ; 2016 ; 2020 ; 2024 ;

Last updated May 27, 2025

The Empire of Japan competed at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. 179 athletes competed in 13 sports and also participated in art competitions. In art competitions, Japan won 2 bronze medals by Ryuji Fujita in paintings and also Sujaku Suzuki in drawing and water colours.

Medalists

Medal	Name	Sport	Event	Date
Gold	Naoto Tajima	Athletics	Men's triple jump	August 6
Gold	Kitei Son	Athletics	Men's marathon ^[1]^[2]	August 9
Gold	Hideko Maehata	Swimming	Women's 200 m breaststroke	August 11
Gold	Shigeo Arai Shigeo Sugiura Masaharu Taguchi Masanori Yusa	Swimming	Men's 4 × 200 m freestyle relay	August 11
Gold	Tetsuo Hamuro	Swimming	Men's 200 m breaststroke	August 15
Gold	Noboru Terada	Swimming	Men's 1500 m freestyle	August 15
Silver	Shuhei Nishida	Athletics	Men's pole vault	August 5
Silver	Masao Harada	Athletics	Men's triple jump	August 6
Silver	Masanori Yusa	Swimming	Men's 100 m freestyle	August 9
Silver	Shumpei Uto	Swimming	Men's 400 m freestyle	August 12
Bronze	Naoto Tajima	Athletics	Men's long jump	August 4
Bronze	Sueo Ōe	Athletics	Men's pole vault	August 5
Bronze	Shōryū Nan	Athletics	Men's marathon ^[1]	August 9
Bronze	Shigeo Arai	Swimming	Men's 100 m freestyle	August 9
Bronze	Shozo Makino	Swimming	Men's 400 m freestyle	August 12
Bronze	Masaji Kiyokawa	Swimming	Men's 100 m backstroke	August 14
Bronze	Reizo Koike	Swimming	Men's 200 m breaststroke	August 15
Bronze	Shumpei Uto	Swimming	Men's 1500 m freestyle	August 15

Medals by sport
Sport				Total
Swimming	4	2	5	11
Athletics	2	2	3	7
Total	6	4	8	18

Athletics

Aquatics

Swimming

Men

Ranks given are within the heat.

Athlete	Event	Heat		Semifinal		Final
Athlete	Event	Time	Rank	Time	Rank	Time	Rank
Shigeo Arai	100 m freestyle	57.7	1 Q	57.9	2 Q	58.0
Masaharu Taguchi		57.5 OR	1 Q	57.9	1 Q	58.1	4
Masanori Yusa		57.8	1 Q	57.5 = OR	1 Q	57.9
Shozo Makino	400 m freestyle	4:51.3	1 Q	4:48.2	=1 Q	4:48.1
Hiroshi Negami		4:52.6	1 Q	4:55.4	3 Q	4:53.6	5
Shunpei Uto		4:45.5 OR	1 Q	4:48.4	1 Q	4:45.6
Sunao Ishiharada	1500 m freestyle	19:55.8	1 Q	19.53.9	2 Q	19:48.5	4
Noboru Terada		19:55.5	=1 Q	19:48.6	1 Q	19:13.7
Shunpei Uto		19:48.3	1 Q	19:55.6	3 Q	19:34.5
Masaji Kiyokawa	100 m backstroke	1:07.2	2 Q	1:09.7	2 Q	1:08.4
Yasuhiko Kojima		1:09.7	1 Q	1:09.9	3 Q	1:10.4	6
Kiichi Yoshida		1:10.0	1 Q	1:09.5	4 q	1:09.7	5
Tetsuo Hamuro	200 m breaststroke	2:42.5 OR	1 Q	2:43.4	1 Q	2:41.5
Saburo Ito		2:45.8	1 Q	2:45.5	3 Q	2:47.6	5
Reizo Koike		2:43.8	1 Q	2:44.5	1 Q	2:44.2
Masanori Yusa Shigeo Sugiura Masaharu Taguchi Shigeo Arai	4 × 200 m freestyle relay	—		8:56.1	1 Q	8:51.5 WR

Women

Ranks given are within the heat.

Athlete	Event	Heat		Semifinal		Final
Athlete	Event	Time	Rank	Time	Rank	Time	Rank
Tsuneko Furuta	100 m freestyle	1:14.6	6	Did not advance
Kazue Kojima		1:11.0	2 Q	1:11.1	7 Q	Did not advance
Rei Takemura		1:14.6	7	Did not advance
Kazue Kojima	400 m freestyle	5:50.4	3 Q	5:43.5	3 Q	5:43.1	6
Hatsuko Morioka	400 m freestyle	5:51.0	4 q	5:49.1	6	Did not advance
Hideko Maehata	200 m breaststroke	3:01.9 OR	1 Q	3:03.1	1 Q	3:03.6
Unoko Tsuboi	200 m breaststroke	3:15.0	3 Q	3:18.4	6	Did not advance
Tsuneko Furuta Kazue Kojima Hatsuko Morioka Rei Takemura	4 × 100 m freestyle relay	—		4:58.1 NR	4	Did not advance

Diving

Men

Athlete	Event	Final
Athlete	Event	Points	Rank
Tomio Koyanagi	3 m springboard	133.07	8
Tsuneo Shibahara	3 m springboard	144.92	4
Tomio Koyanagi	10 m platform	94.54	8
Tsuneo Shibahara	10 m platform	107.40	6

Women

Athlete	Event	Final
Athlete	Event	Points	Rank
Fusako Kōno	3 m springboard	70.27	8
Masayo Ōsawa	3 m springboard	73.94	6
Fusako Kōno	10 m platform	30.24	6
Masayo Ōsawa		28.10	14
Reiko Ōsawa		32.53	4

Water polo

Elimination rounds

In the first round each team in a group played each other team in the same group. The placings were determined on points. If the points were equal, then the better goal average decided. The first two teams of each group were qualified for the semi-finals, while the third and fourth placed team was eliminated.

Group 3

Rank	Team	Pld	W	L	GF	GA	Pts
1.	Germany (GER)	3	3	0	27	3	6	X	8:1	6:1	13:1
2.	France (FRA)	3	2	1	12	10	4	1:8	X	3:2	8:0
3.	Czechoslovakia (TCH)	3	1	2	7	12	2	1:6	2:3	X	4:3
4.	Japan (JPN)	3	0	3	4	25	0	1:13	0:8	3:4	X

Place:14th

Basketball

First Round

7 August 1936 (1936-08-07)	Japan	35–19	Republic of China	Berlin, Germany
6:00 PM	Scoring by half: 15–10, 20–9

Second Round

9 August 1936
4:00PM

Japan	43–31	Poland
Scoring by half:23–13, 20–18

Berlin, Germany

Third Round

11 August 1936
4:00 PM

Mexico	28–22	Japan
Scoring by half:12–8, 16–14

Berlin, Germany

Equestrian

Football

Round of 16

4 August 1936

17:30

Japan	3–2	Sweden
Kamo 49' Ukon 62' Matsunaga 85'	Report	Persson 24', 37'

Hertha-BSC Field , Berlin

Attendance: 5,000

Referee: Wilhelm Peters (Germany)

Quarter-finals

7 August 1936

17:30

Italy	8–0	Japan
Frossi 14', 75', 80' Biagi 32', 57', 81', 82' Cappelli 89'	Report

Mommsenstadion , Berlin

Attendance: 8,000

Referee: Otto Olsson (Sweden)

Field hockey

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	India	3	3	0	20	0	+20	6	Semi-finals
2	Japan	3	2	1	8	11	−3	4
3	Hungary	3	1	2	4	8	−4	2
4	United States	3	0	3	2	15	−13	0

Source: TheSports.org

5 August 1936
16:30

Japan	5–1	United States
	Report

Umpires:
J. Schenkmann (SUI)
A. Lepètre (FRA)

8 August 1936
18:00

Japan	3–1	Hungary
	Report

10 August 1936
16:30

India	9–0	Japan
	Report

Gymnastics

Rowing

Japan had 16 rowers participate in three out of seven rowing events in 1936.^[3]

Men's coxed pair

Men's coxed four

Men's eight

Sailing

Japan had 3 rowers participate in 2 out of four Sailing events in 1936.

O-Jolle

Norio Fujimura

Star

Minoru Takarabe
Takuo Mii

Wrestling

Art competitions

References

1 2 Both Sohn Kee-chung (Kitei Son) and Nam Sung-yong (Shōryu Nan) were Koreans, but since Korea was a Japanese colony at the time, they were required to use their legal and official names in Japanese pronunciations and are recorded under the Japanese spellings in the Olympic records
↑ IOC biography of Son Kitei
↑ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Japan Rowing at the 1936 Berlin Summer Games". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 9 May 2018.

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[Korean-1] 1 2 Both Sohn Kee-chung (Kitei Son) and Nam Sung-yong (Shōryu Nan) were Koreans, but since Korea was a Japanese colony at the time, they were required to use their legal and official names in Japanese pronunciations and are recorded under the Japanese spellings in the Olympic records

[2] IOC biography of Son Kitei

[3] Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Japan Rowing at the 1936 Berlin Summer Games". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 9 May 2018.

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