Japan Win First Ever Women’s Volleyball Gold - Tokyo 1964 Olympics

📲 Subscribe to @olympics: Classic Olympic highlights as Japan women’s volleyball team add to the men’s bronze with the gold medal in the tournament as the home nation at the Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games. This was the first time volleyball had been included in the Olympic programme, and it was keenly anticipated by the home supporters. The Japanese men took bronze, behind the dominant Soviet Union, but the home nation was more focused on Japan’s women’s volleyball team. Ten members of the team worked at the same spinning mill near Osaka. The team’s coach, Hirofumi Daimatsu, also worked there, where he was in charge of buying office supplies. Such an ordinary exterior hid a man of extraordinary determination. His training techniques bordered on the extreme. Players were taunted and forced to train almost every day of the year, but Daimatsu also created new tactics that have survived to this day. He crafted a highly successful t