| Shūhei Nishida | |
| Native Name: | 西田 修平 |
| Native Name Lang: | Ja |
| Nationality: | Japanese |
| Birth Date: | 21 March 1910 |
| Birth Place: | Nachikatsuura, Wakayama, Japan |
| Death Place: | Tokyo, Japan |
| Height: | 1.76m (05.77feet) |
| Weight: | 61kg (134lb) |
| Sport: | Athletics |
| Event: | Pole vault |
| Alma Mater: | Waseda University |
was a Japanese Olympic athlete who competed mainly in the pole vault.[1]
Nishida was born in what is now part of Nachikatsuura, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. He was a student of the Engineering Department at Waseda University, when selected as a member of the Japanese Olympic team for the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, where he won the silver medal in the pole vault event.[1]
After graduation from Waseda University, he obtained a job at Hitachi. He subsequently participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, Germany where he repeated his performance winning a second silver medal in the same event tying with his friend and teammate Sueo Oe. When the two declined to compete against each other to decide a winner, Nishida was awarded the silver and Oe the bronze by decision of the Japanese team, on the basis that Nishida had cleared the height in fewer attempts.[2] The competition was featured in a scene in the documentary Olympia, filmed by Leni Riefenstahl. On their return to Japan, Nishida and Oe famously had their Olympic medals cut in half, and had a jeweler splice together two new “friendship medals”, half in bronze and half in silver.[1] [3] [4]
At the age of 41, Nishida won a bronze medal at the 1951 Asian Games. He remained active in sports all of his life, serving as a referee at events, and from 1959 as an honorary vice chairman of the Japan Association of Athletics Federations, and as a member of the Japanese Olympic Committee. In 1989, he was awarded the silver medal of the Olympic Order. Nishida died of heart failure in 1997 at the age of 87.[1]