Yasunari Kawabata had Parkinson's disease), a possible illicit love affair, or the shock caused by the suicide of his friend Yukio Mishima in 1970. Unlike Mishima, Kawabata left no note, and since (again unlike Mishima) he had not discussed significantly in his writings the topic of taking his own life, his motives remain unclear. However, his Japanese biographer, Takeo Okuno, has related how he had nightmares about Mishima for two or three hundred nights in a row, and was incessantly haunted by the specter of Mishima. In a persistently depressed state of mind, he would tell friends during his last years that
Yahiko Mishima around 150-cm. During the domestic qualifying trials for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics held at what later became Haneda Airport, Mishima was initially selected to be part of the referee committee, but decided to participate in the event as a contestant instead, taking first place in the 100, 400 and 800 meter races, and placed second in the 200 meter race. Although a number of qualifying events had taken placed, support for the Olympics was not forthcoming from the Japanese Ministry of Education, and the budget was limited to sending only two athletes to Stockholm. Mishima and long-distance runner Shizo Kanakuri