The 1964 Tokyo Olympics was an event that left an impact on many people, and for many others, a context in which they created moving moments and memories. This effect of the Olympics produced a large number of ‘literary’ criticisms and accounts of the games. The writers include Tatsuzo Ishikawa, Yasushi Inoue, Kenzaburo Oe, Makoto Oda, Seicho Matsumoto, Yukio Mishima, and female writers Sawako Ariyoshi, Harumi Setouchi, and Ayako Sono among countless others. However, there are only a handful of works by authors and literary critics on the 1964 Paralympics. Tsutomu Minakami and Yoshio Nakano are among the very few who have written on the Paralympics.

Nevertheless, although it is not widely known, the Tokyo Paralympics was a strongly moving experience for some of its participants and spectators to the extent that it marked a turning point in their lives. This is documented by a small number of people in works that have not received much attention.

This paper introduces these records of impressions left by the Paralympics and literary works and criticisms, as literature on the Tokyo Paralympics. It separates works into three categories based on the writer’s perspective: ⑴ views on the Paralympics by those who express some skepticism on the Olympic Games; ⑵ comments by those who are skeptical of the Paralympic Games itself; and ⑶ works that show the Paralympics as a medium that changed the writer’s life.

This article examines the standard of Japanese athletes performance in the Paralympic Games by comparing it with the performance of athletes from other National Paralympic Committees (NPCs). It uses data on Paralympic Games results available on the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) website.

First, the article examines the performance of the Japanese national team. The percentage of medals won by Japanese athletes in the events in which they participated is relatively low in the summer Paralympic Games and average in the winter Paralympic Games when compared with other nations such as Australia, Great Britain and the United States in the summer games and Canada, Norway and the United States in the winter games. The comparison with other nations also indicates that China in the summer games and Russia in the winter games achieved a high level of performance. Further examination shows that the high level of performance by one nation is linked to the number of athletes it has in each sport. For example, athletes from the Russian team form a large part of the participants in biathlon. This fact indicates that there may be an unfair advantage in some sports in the Paralympic Games.

Second, the article examines the performance of Japanese athletes and teams in each individual and team sport in the Paralympic Games. In individual sports, the ratio of Japanese athletes who won the first round is low in athletics and high in swimming when compared with the overall competitive rate in the first round. In team sports, the Japanese team has won a medal in only one sport, womens goalball, and a Japanese team has not participated in some sports such as football five a side, football seven a side and mens goalball.

In a lead-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, various organizations and local governments are promoting Olympic and Paralympic education. This paper describes the definition of Paralympic education by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and analyzes past cases from the 1964 Tokyo Games as a Japanese example and the 2014 Sochi Games as an overseas example. These cases are used as reference material for examining individual Paralympic education programs. The findings are as follows.

1) IPC defines Paralympic education as using sport as a teaching material to promote social recognition and correct understanding of people with impairments.

2) The Olympics Readers, 35,000 copies circulated to junior high school students, were issued by the Ministry of Education in the lead-up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. They contained an episode about an athlete who overcame impairment from infantile paralysis to win an Olympic medal. The message transformed students attitudes toward disabled sports.

3) During the 1964 Tokyo Paralympics, Oita Prefecture, known for its advanced initiatives for disabled sports, held a six-day athletic event at a prosthetic facility. Disabled peoples involvement in sports inspired by the Paralympics can be positioned as an example of a Paralympic education program in terms of facilitating inclusion in physical education and activity as described by the IPC.

4) In the lead-up to the 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, Paralympic Awareness Programs were implemented in the host city of Sochi and surrounding areas. The programs included developing a sporting environment for people with disabilities and improving the social status of Paralympians. Cultural and educational programs staged by the organizing committee included an art exhibition for people with visual impairment which ran during the Paralympic Games.

Based on these findings, the paper also explores the direction of educational programs leading up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. For Paralympic education to spread, it is necessary to clarify educational objectives in light of the IPC definition and to rebuild past programs so as to establish a model curriculum for practical education based on the four values of the Paralympics: Courage, Determination, Inspiration and Equality.