The Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics finished on 5 November 2021. A total of 870,000 meals were provided in the main dining facility during the events. Sports nutrition research in Japan began before the previous Tokyo Olympics, which was held in 1964. A book about sports nutrition in Japan had already been published, in 1949. A number of previous studies have examined nutrition among Olympic athletes, and influential research on sports nutrition in Japan includes a series of studies on sports anemia. This series covered basic research into the mechanisms of sports anemia through to the prevention of sports anemia. However, anemia among athletes remains an important issue. In Japan, an accreditation system for sports dietitians was established in 2007, and a scientific association for sports nutrition was established in 2004. However, the connection between basic research and practice remains a substantial problem.
Keywords: food provision at Olympics; sports anemia; sports dietitian.