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The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 striking Tokyo city was one of the largest scale disasters in the history of Japan. This paper aims to explore how Tokyo city utilized sport in the recovery process from the catastrophe by analyzing historical documents. Special focus is centred on the sport administration in the Tokyo municipal office and specific sport events held during 1923–1930. The findings are that the Social Education Division expanded the sport-related policy for moving forward with the disaster recovery. In particular, the sport events were held to comfort victims in temporary shelters, promote citizen’s vigour and physical fitness, celebrate the recovery completion and express gratitude to those who contributed to the recovery. Even in the 1920s, the early period of sport in Japan, sport events might have taken particular roles in accordance with the post-disaster phases. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]