Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Tokyo 2020 Olympics trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 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 50 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which year were the Tokyo 2020 Olympics actually held?
2021
The one-year delay made it the only Games ever staged in an odd-numbered year.
Q 02On what date was the postponement of the Games announced?
March 24, 2020
The announcement came 122 days before the planned opening, in a joint statement by the IOC, the organisers and Shinzo Abe.
Q 03Why were the events held without spectators?
A state of emergency in Tokyo
It remains the only Olympic Games held with no official spectators.
Q 04Roughly how much did the Tokyo Games cost in total, making them the most expensive ever?
Over $20 billion
The postponement and pandemic measures pushed the bill well past any previous Games.
Q 05In which city did the IOC vote to award the Games to Tokyo in 2013?
Buenos Aires
Tokyo beat Istanbul 60 votes to 36 in the final head-to-head round.
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 07Tokyo 2020 was the fourth Olympics in Japan; which of these was NOT one of the previous three?
Osaka 1984
Tokyo became the first Asian city to host the Summer Games twice.
Q 08Which nation topped the Tokyo 2020 medal table?
United States
The Americans won 39 golds and 113 medals in total, one gold ahead of China.
Q 09How many gold medals did host nation Japan win, a national record?
27
Japan's 27 golds and 58 medals in total were both the most it had ever won.
Q 10Under what name did the Russian delegation compete?
ROC
The acronym stood for the Russian Olympic Committee, though the full name could not be used.
Q 11Which of these nations won its first-ever Olympic gold medal in Tokyo?
Bermuda
Bermuda, the Philippines and Qatar all struck gold for the first time; the other three won their first medals of any colour.
Q 12Which weightlifter won the Philippines' first Olympic gold?
Hidilyn Diaz
She lifted her way into history in the women's 55 kg class.
Q 13Which swimmer won the most gold medals in Tokyo, with five?
Caeleb Dressel
Emma McKeon won the most medals overall, with seven.
Q 14Which Australian swimmer won seven medals, tying the record for a woman at one Games?
Q 21To which city were the marathon and race walks moved because of heat concerns?
Sapporo
Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike accepted the IOC's decision while saying the races should have stayed in Tokyo.
Q 22The Tokyo medals were made from metal recovered from what?
Donated electronics
The programme aimed to collect eight tonnes of metal, much of it from mobile phones.
Q 23Who designed the Tokyo 2020 medals?
Junichi Kawanishi
Their ribbons carried one, two or three silicone lines so gold, silver and bronze could be told apart by touch.
Emma McKeon
She matched Soviet gymnast Maria Gorokhovskaya's seven medals from 1952.
Q 15Which four sports made their Olympic debut in Tokyo?
Karate, sport climbing, surfing, skateboarding
Baseball and softball also returned for one Games only, for the first time since 2008.
Q 16How many medal events were held at Tokyo 2020?
339
They were spread across 33 sports and 51 disciplines.
Q 17Which sport did the IOC vote to drop in 2013, only to reinstate it for 2020 months later?
Wrestling
Its reinstatement beat baseball/softball and squash, 49 votes to 24 and 22.
Q 18Who lit the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony?
Naomi Osaka
The tennis star's cauldron was used only at the ceremonies; a second one burned in public on the Odaiba waterfront.
Q 19Who formally opened the Games?
Emperor Naruhito
The ceremony also held a moment of silence for victims of the pandemic, the 2011 tsunami and the Munich massacre.
Q 20What Olympic first happened with the flag bearers at the opening ceremony?
One man and one woman per country
The change came out of Thomas Bach's Agenda 2020 reforms.
Q 24The podiums were 3D-printed from what donated material?
Laundry detergent bottles
Some 400,000 bottles were collected over nine months, and the rings were made from recycled aluminium from 2011 disaster housing.
Q 25What was the slogan of the Tokyo 2020 torch relay?
Hope Lights Our Way
The flame spent the postponement year in a lantern on display in Fukushima and then Tokyo.
Q 26In which prefecture did the torch relay restart in March 2021?
Fukushima
It set off from Naraha, in the region hit by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, almost a year late.
Q 27Which swimmer carried the flame lantern in a 2020 video after recovering from leukaemia?
Rikako Ikee
The video drew a parallel between her comeback and emergence from the pandemic.
Q 28Who resigned as head of the organising committee in February 2021 after sexist remarks?
Yoshirō Mori
The former prime minister was replaced by Seiko Hashimoto.
Q 29Which architect's stadium design was scrapped in 2015 over cost and criticism?
Zaha Hadid
Critics compared the design to a bicycle helmet; Kengo Kuma's temple-inspired replacement was chosen instead.
Q 30Why was the original 2015 Tokyo 2020 emblem withdrawn?
Plagiarism allegations
Belgian designer Olivier Debie claimed it copied his Théâtre de Liège logo; Asao Tokolo's checkered ring replaced it.