To Helsingfors

Outbidding Italy, England and Finland at the 1936 meeting of the International Olympic Committee, the Japanese succeeded in having the Olympic Games of 1940 allocated to Tokyo to celebrate the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the Empire. Last week, after the Japanese Government had repeatedly pooh-poohed recurrent rumors that it might abandon the Games because of the "incident" in China and had already voted 15,000,000 yen ($5,000,000) for the construction of an Olympic Village, the Minister of Public Welfare suddenly announced that the Government had withdrawn its support of the 1940 Olympics, asked Tokyo to revoke its invitation.

The Japanese explained: ". . . Cancellation is due to the fact that it is absolutely necessary for Japan to obtain the objective of the Sino-Japanese incident by national mobilization of materials and spirits. . . ." International observers, not at all surprised at this turn of events, hinted at other reasons in addition to the pinched economic situation: 1) Recent restoration to power of aristocratic army leaders who, dreading Japanese adoption of Western ways, have from the start opposed the meet and its concurrent influx of Occidentals; 2) Fear of "losing face" in view of the threatened boycott of the Games by Great Britain, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, and probably others. Tokyo said it might ask for the Games in 1944.

While Tokyo merchants were moaning over the potential loss of millions of yen, Belgium's Count Henri de Baillet-Latour, president of the International Olympic Committee, announced that the 1940 Olympics would be awarded to Helsingfors, the Finnish city whose bid had been outvoted (36 to 27) at the committee meeting in 1936. Peace-loving Finland, a land of Grade A athletes, including Runners Paavo Nurmi, Hannes Kolehmainen, Gunnar Hoeckert, has never been host to the Olympics, was last week planning a modest program in keeping with the ideals of international amity.

The Winter Olympics, scheduled to be held at Sapporo in Northern Japan, will probably be offered to Oslo.

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