Tokyo 2020 Olympics
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49 free Tokyo 2020 Olympics trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Tokyo 2020 happened in 2021, which tells you most of what you need to know. It was the only Olympics ever postponed, the only one held in an odd-numbered year, the only one staged without official spectators, and at more than $20 billion the most expensive ever. It also made its medals from recycled phones and moved its marathon north to Sapporo to dodge the heat. These 49 questions cover the whole saga: the Buenos Aires vote that beat Istanbul, the scrapped Zaha Hadid stadium, the plagiarism row over the first logo, the resignation of Yoshirō Mori, the "Here We Go" task force, the ROC label for Russian athletes, and the torch relay that sat in a lantern for a year. On the field there is Naomi Osaka lighting the cauldron, Caeleb Dressel's five golds, Emma McKeon's seven medals, Hidilyn Diaz's first gold for the Philippines, and the debuts of karate, surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing. Easy questions stick to the headlines; the hard tier asks about Miraitowa's name, the ichimatsu moyo pattern and why swimming finals ran in the morning. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something either way.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Japanese prime minister agreed with the IOC in March 2020 to postpone the Tokyo Olympics?
Shinzo Abe
Shinzo Abe told parliament a delay might be unavoidable, and on 24 March 2020 he and the IOC agreed to move the Games to 2021.
Q 02Which country's Olympic committee said in March 2020 it would keep athletes home unless Tokyo 2020 was postponed?
Canada
Canada's committee said nothing mattered more than athletes' health and safety, and within days the IOC and Japan moved the Games to 2021.
Q 03Why were spectators barred from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic venues in the capital?
A state of emergency in Tokyo
A state of emergency in Tokyo, declared as Delta cases spiked, forced organisers into a U-turn on crowds, though some venues outside the capital still admitted fans.
Q 04Which US gymnast won the Tokyo 2020 all-around gold after Simone Biles pulled out of the competition?
Sunisa Lee
Sunisa Lee beat Brazil's Rebeca Andrade by 0.135 points, two years after her father was paralysed in a fall from a ladder just before the 2019 US championships.
Q 05Four years before winning the 2020 Olympics, Tokyo lost the race to host the 2016 Games to which city?
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro won the 2009 vote in Copenhagen after Tokyo went out in round two, and Tokyo came back to win in 2013.
Q 06Which city did Tokyo defeat in the final round of the host vote?
Istanbul
Madrid and Istanbul tied for second in round one, and Madrid lost the run-off.
Q 07Which Japanese city hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, the last Games held in Japan before Tokyo 2020?
Nagano
Nagano got a Shinkansen line from Tokyo in time for the Games, replacing express trains that had taken almost three hours.
Q 08Which nation topped the Tokyo 2020 medal table?
United States
The United States won 39 golds to China's 38, only overtaking China on the final day, when its women won the volleyball final.
Q 09In which sport did host nation Japan win nine of its record 27 gold medals at Tokyo 2020?
Judo
Judo gave Japan nine golds, yet France beat the hosts 4–1 in the sport's first Olympic mixed team final.
Q 10Under what name did Russia's athletes compete at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics?
ROC
ROC stood for Russian Olympic Committee: doping sanctions barred Russia's name, flag and anthem, so a Tchaikovsky piano concerto played for its champions.
Q 11Which of these nations won its first-ever Olympic gold medal in Tokyo?
Bermuda
Bermuda's gold came from triathlete Flora Duffy, 45th at London 2012, and made the island of about 62,000 people the smallest country to win a Summer gold.
Q 12Which weightlifter won the Philippines' first Olympic gold?
Hidilyn Diaz
Hidilyn Diaz was stranded in Malaysia by lockdowns and trained with water bottles for weights before ending the Philippines' 97-year wait for gold.
Q 13Which swimmer won the most gold medals in Tokyo, with five?
Caeleb Dressel
Caeleb Dressel's five golds included the 100m freestyle, where he beat Kyle Chalmers, the Australian who had won that event at the previous Olympics.
Q 21To which city were the marathon and race walks moved because of heat concerns?
Sapporo
Sapporo got the races to escape Tokyo's heat, yet on the women's marathon morning the two cities turned out almost equally hot.
Q 22The Tokyo medals were made from metal recovered from what?
Donated electronics
Donated electronics were collected across Japan for two years, and by March 2019 they had supplied all the metal needed for the medals.
Q 23What formed the Tokyo 2020 emblem and then a globe of the Earth above the stadium at the opening ceremony?
Drones
Drones stole the show, with critics calling the display the highlight of the whole ceremony.
Q 14Which Australian swimmer won seven medals, tying the record for a woman at one Games?
Emma McKeon
Emma McKeon had missed selection for Australia's London 2012 team after failing to place at the Olympic trials.
Q 15Which four sports made their Olympic debut in Tokyo?
Karate, sport climbing, surfing, skateboarding
Karate, sport climbing, surfing and skateboarding all debuted, but karate was left off the programme for Paris 2024.
Q 16Which high jumper agreed to share Tokyo 2020 gold with Italy's Gianmarco Tamberi rather than hold a jump-off?
Mutaz Essa Barshim
Mutaz Essa Barshim asked an official 'Can we have two golds?', and he and Tamberi, both back from serious injuries, celebrated as joint champions.
Q 17Which sport did the IOC vote to drop in 2013, only to reinstate it for 2020 months later?
Wrestling
Wrestling won 49 votes to baseball-softball's 24 and squash's 22 after its new president, Nenad Lalović, rewrote the rules to make bouts more watchable.
Q 18Who lit the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony?
Naomi Osaka
Naomi Osaka lit the cauldron, then lost 6–1, 6–4 to Markéta Vondroušová in the third round of the Olympic tennis tournament.
Q 19Who formally opened the Games?
Emperor Naruhito
Emperor Naruhito opened the Games as his grandfather Hirohito had opened Tokyo 1964, but his declaration said 'commemorating' where Hirohito's said 'celebrating'.
Q 20Which flag-bearer rule made its Olympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony?
One man and one woman per country
One man and one woman per country: the IOC let teams name two flag bearers to promote gender equality, so Nauru's Jonah Harris marched beside Nancy Genzel Abouke.
Q 24The Tokyo 2020 Olympic podiums were 3D-printed from what material?
Laundry detergent bottles
Laundry detergent bottles were dropped into collection boxes across Japan, so the public helped make the podiums.
Q 25Which actor carried the Tokyo 2020 Olympic flame into Sparta on the day Greece cancelled the rest of its torch relay?
Gerard Butler
Gerard Butler, who played the Spartan king Leonidas in 300, ran the flame into Sparta, and the big crowds along the route helped push Greece to cancel its leg.
Q 26In which prefecture did the Tokyo 2020 torch relay restart in March 2021?
Fukushima
Fukushima was due to launch the relay on 26 March 2020, but it was suspended a day earlier, so the flame finally set off from Naraha a year later.
Q 27Which swimmer carried the flame lantern in a 2020 video after recovering from leukaemia?
Rikako Ikee
Rikako Ikee, diagnosed with leukaemia in 2019, won the 100m butterfly at Japan's trials two years later to earn a place on the Tokyo medley relay.
Q 28Who resigned as head of the organising committee in February 2021 after sexist remarks?
Yoshirō Mori
Yoshirō Mori quit after saying women make meetings drag on by talking too much, and Olympic speed skater and cyclist Seiko Hashimoto replaced him.
Q 29Which architect's stadium design was scrapped in 2015 over cost and criticism?
Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid's design, likened to a bicycle helmet, would have cost 252 billion yen, and the row over scrapping it led Japan's sports minister to resign.
Q 30Why was the original 2015 Tokyo 2020 emblem withdrawn?
Plagiarism allegations
Plagiarism allegations from Belgian artist Olivier Debie, who said it echoed his Théâtre de Liège logo, sank Kenjirō Sano's emblem, and Asao Tokolo's design replaced it.