At the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, Tsuburaya Kōkichi won the bronze medal in the marathon. On January 9, 1968, he took his own life at the Self-Defense Forces physical training school in Nerima, Tokyo, at 27. In the note to his family, he wrote that he was completely exhausted and could no longer run.
The writer Kawabata Yasunari called the note sorrowful beyond any number of words. Some writers have linked his death to the pressure of the next Olympics, in Mexico City. These are their accounts, not established fact.