LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

Sidney L. James

December 23, 1963

Tokyo's forthcoming Olympic Games will be the first ever held in Asia, and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED decided early in 1963 that this special year-end issue would be a salute to the sportsmen of that vast, fascinating—and seemingly far away—continent. To achieve that goal, our writers and photographers and artists spent months in research and reporting, and traveled in all close to 175,000 miles—most of it by jet but a significant part by auto, train, sloop, junk and even sampan.