Portugal · Participation in the Olympic Games

Issue date18 May 2021

Total mintage509,992

EU maximum510,000

Editions3

Edge lettering5 Wappenschilde + 7 castles, evenly distributed

InscriptionTóquio’20 / 2021

DesignerFrancisco Providência

mintImprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda S.A., Lisboa

Issue occasion

The coin is dedicated to the Olympic Games in Tokyo, which were postponed from 2020 to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The design features the symbols of the Portuguese Olympic Committee as well as the inscriptions “Tóquio’20” and “2021”, the artist’s name and the mint mark.

The design

The coin’s design features the symbols of the Portuguese Olympic Committee. The coin design had been approved by the Council in 2020, and the coin’s issue was originally planned for mid-2020. However, as the Games were postponed to 23 July to 8 August 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Casa da Moeda and the Olympic Committee decided to postpone the issue. Consequently, some details of the design were updated. In particular, the shorter two-digit format with an apostrophe was chosen for the year 2020 (“Tóquio’20”), followed by the year of issue, 2021, and the artist’s name next to the mintmark.

The outer ring of the coin features the twelve stars of the European flag.

Background on the topic

The Summer Olympic Games in Tokio were the Games of the XXXII Olympiad. The modern Olympic Games trace their origins to the revival of the ancient tradition of athletic competitions initiated by Pierre de Coubertin; the first Summer Games of the modern era took place in Athens in 1896. After 1964, Tokio was the host city for the second time. This made the Japanese capital the first Asian city to host the Summer Olympic Games twice.

Despite the changed dates, the official designation “Tokyo 2020” was retained. There was no precedent for such a procedure in the history of the modern Games: earlier Olympic Games had been cancelled during the two world wars, but had not been postponed to a later year. The competitions took place under extensive infection-control measures. Foreign spectators were not admitted, and far-reaching restrictions also applied to the domestic public.

The sports programme included skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing for the first time. Karate was added as an additional sport of the host country; baseball and softball returned to the Olympic programme. Portugal won four medals. Pedro Pichardo won the triple jump, while Patrícia Mamona won silver in the same event. Fernando Pimenta won bronze in the K-1 1,000 metres, and judoka Jorge Fonseca won bronze in the up-to-100-kilogram weight class.

The Portuguese Olympic Committee, whose emblem was incorporated into the coin’s design, is the national representative of the Olympic movement. Together with the sports federations, it organises Portugal’s participation in the Games. Portugal has been represented at the Summer Olympic Games since 1912 and has taken part in every edition since then. The coin issue therefore refers not only to the international sporting event, but also to Portugal’s long-standing institutional ties with the Olympic movement. The specific occasion was given additional significance by the exceptional organisational conditions and Portugal’s performance.