Unforgettable firsts and inspiring journeys: Asian athletes’ milestones at the Olympics

Nora Margaret Polley, who was born in India, competed in the tennis events of the 1924 Paris Olympics, making her the first woman to represent an Asian country in the Olympics. Polley lost in the third round of the singles event and, playing with Sydney Jacob, ended her Olympic run in the second round of the doubles event.

Four years later, Japan’s Kinue Hitomi would be more successful in Amsterdam in 1928, the first time women were allowed to compete in athletics and gymnastics at the Olympics. The track and field athlete—the first and then the only Japanese woman at the Games— entered the 100 metres, 800 metres, high jump and discus events; she took home the silver in the 800 metres race. With her win, Hitomi also became the first Asian woman to win an Olympic medal. Unfortunately, many competitors at the 800 metres event finished in a state of exhaustion, and women were not allowed to run in the event again until 1960.

Other milestones for Asian women were achieved by Irene Anita Kwok, the first woman to represent Hong Kong in the Olympics (at the 1952 Olympics); athletics star Tang Pui Wah, the first woman to represent Singapore (at the 1952 Olympics); track and field athlete Manolita Cinco, who was the first woman to represent the Philippines (at the 1956 Olympics); swimmer Marny Jolley, the first woman to represent Malaysia (at the 1964 Olympics); and Princess Arunee Bhanubandh, who was the first woman to represent Thailand (in the sailing event of the 1964 Olympics).

The 1928 Amsterdam Olympics has been called ‘the Olympics of firsts’, as many Olympic traditions—including the lighting of the Olympic Flame—were born that year. With more women and athletes from more countries competing that year, it would also prove to be a very diverse Games: athletes from 28 different nations won gold medals in Amsterdam, a record that would last for 40 years.

Among them was Mikio Oda, who by reaching 15.21 metres high in the triple jump event, won the gold, making him Japan’s—and Asia’s—first Olympic champion. A few days later, swimmer Yoshiyuki Tsuruta would also win gold for Japan in the 200-metre breaststroke event with a new world record time of 2 minutes, 48.8 seconds.

Mikio Oda's pioneering achievement would be commemorated decades later: at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, when the Olympic flag was raised 15.21 metres high during the opening ceremony, and in 2000, when he was posthumously voted the Male Asian Athlete of the Century. The athlete would also establish the Mikio Oda Memorial International Amateur Athletic Game, an annual sports event in Hiroshima, in 1967.

The 1964 Tokyo Olympics was the first Olympic Games held in Asia. The event saw 5,151 athletes from 93 countries and regions participating in 163 events across 20 sports, with judo and volleyball introduced for the first time. Japan won 29 medals—16 golds, five silvers and eight bronzes—the third-highest tally at the Games.

Marking the country’s return to the global stage after World War II, the 18th Olympiad also saw the construction of new infrastructure such as the Shinkansen high-speed rail system (also known as the bullet train), which is still used today. Notably, Yoshinori Sakai, who was born in Hiroshima on the day the atomic bomb was dropped, lit the Olympic flame.

Japan would later host the 2020 Olympics, the most engaged Olympic Games ever, earning over 3.05 billion unique viewers, according to the IOC. To date, Asia has hosted the Olympic Games four times: Tokyo 1964 and 2020, Seoul 1988 and Beijing 2008.

In recent decades, Asian countries have seen increased participation in the Olympic Games, with China, Japan and South Korea rising to the upper ranks of the medal tallies. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Lee Lai Shen won Hong Kong’s first gold medal at the sailing event, while Somlack Kamsing won Thailand’s first gold at the boxing event. Joseph Schooling brought home Singapore’s first gold medal at the men’s 100-metre butterfly event of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Chen Shih-hsin and Chu Mu-yen won their respective Taekwondo events on the same day of the 2004 Athens Olympics, making them the first Taiwanese athletes to take home gold. Most recently, Hidilyn Diaz bagged the Philippines’ first gold medal, at the women’s 55 kg weightlifting event of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

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