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The Oriental Witches: Women, Volleyball and the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the Japanese women's volleyball won the gold medal, which in many ways can be viewed as an epoch-making event in Japanese post-war sporting history. This article explores the background to that victory, revealing a corporate history of the sport with a prominent role played by Japanese cotton textile companies. It argues that gold medal success at the 1964 Olympics was the result of a history of corporate investment in women's volleyball, in particular by one company, Nichibō Corporation, and tells the Olympic story with a focus on the personal recollections of the women's volleyball team captain, Kasai Masae. Finally, it evaluates the impact that Olympic victory had on the popularity and strength of women's volleyball in Japan in the decades after 1964.