Biography
Yoshinori Sakai was a Japanese sprinter and later television journalist. Born on 6 August 1945 in Miyoshi, Hiroshima Prefecture, he was selected as the final torchbearer at the opening ceremony of the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, lighting the cauldron on 10 October. The choice symbolised Japan's post-war recovery, as he had been born on the day of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Sakai competed for Waseda University and won the Japanese 400 metres title in 1966. At the Asian Games that year in Bangkok he took gold in the 4 × 400 metres relay and silver in the individual 400 metres. He appeared as himself in the documentary film Tokyo Olympiad (1965). In 1968 he joined Fuji Television, where he worked as a journalist and sports producer until his death from cerebral haemorrhage in Tokyo on 10 September 2014.
