TOKYO (AP) – Seiko Hashimoto has appeared in seven Olympics, four in the winter and three in the summer – most by an ‘multi-season’ athlete in the competitions.
She made even more history in Japan on Thursday, where women still rarely appear in the council chambers and positions of political power.
Hashimoto, 56, has been named chairman of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee after a meeting of his 80% executive council. She replaces 83-year-old Yoshiro Mori, a former Japanese prime minister who was forced to resign last week after making sexist remarks about women.
In essence, he said that women talk too much.
“Now I am here to give back what I owe as an athlete and to give back what I received,” Hashimoto said according to the interpreter.
Hashimoto was the Olympic Minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. She also held a portfolio dealing with gender equality and women’s empowerment. She said she would be replaced by Olympic Minister Tamayo Marukawa.
She has repeatedly raised the issue of gender equality and focused on issues at the organizing committee, which is dominated by men, has no female vice presidents and an executive council made up of 80% men. There are about 3,500 people employed.
“Of course, it’s very important what Tokyo 2020 does as a organizing committee on gender equality,” she said as she sat between two men – CEO Toshiro Muto and spokesperson Masa Takaya. “I think it will be important for Tokyo 2020 to practice equality.”
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said Hashimoto was “the perfect choice” for the job.
“With the appointment of a woman as president, the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee is also sending a very important signal regarding gender equality,” Bach said in a statement.
Hashimoto participated in three Olympic Summer Games (1988, 1992 and 1996) and cycling in four Winter Olympics (1984, 1988, 1992 and 1994). She won a bronze medal – her only medal – during the Albertville Speedskating Games in 1992.
According to the historian dr. Bill Mallon is her seven appearances most by any athlete of a ‘multi-season’ in the games.
Japan-born Naomi Osaka, who spoke about Hashimoto after her semi-final victory over Serena Williams at the Australian Open, said: “you see that the newer generation does not tolerate many things.”
“I feel it’s really good because you push forward and barriers are broken down, especially for women,” Osaka said. “We had to fight for so many things just to be equal. Even many things are still not equal. ”
The new president has been linked to the Olympics in many ways. She was born just five days before the opening ceremony of the 1964 Tokyo Games in Hokkaido in northern Japan. Her name “Seiko” comes from “seika”, which is translated as Olympic flame in English.
According to reports widely circulated in Japan, Hashimoto was reluctant to accept the post and was one of three finalists considered by a selection committee led by 85-year-old camera company Fujio Mitarai of Canon.
The selection committee met for three consecutive days, a quick appointment with the postponed Olympics that opened in just over five months amid a pandemic and faced a myriad of problems.
Polls show that about 80% of the Japanese public want to cancel or postpone the Olympics again. There are fears of bringing tens of thousands of athletes and others to Japan, which has better control of the coronavirus than most countries.
There is also opposition to the rising costs.
The official cost is $ 15.4 billion, although several government audits says the price is at least $ 25 billion, according to a study by the University of Oxford the most expensive Olympic Summer Games.
The nomination of a woman could be a breakthrough for gender equality in Japan, where women are under-represented in council chambers and in politics. Japan ranks 121st out of 153 countries on the World Economic Forum’s annual rankings for gender equality.
Before stepping down, Mori last week tried to present 84-year-old Saburo Kawabuchi, a former head of the country’s football federation. But social media, Japanese talk shows and newspaper reports have widely criticized reports of the closed-door deal.
Kawabuchi quickly withdrew from further consideration.
Hashimoto is not without her critics. A Japanese magazine in 2014 presented photos of her kissing artist Daisuke Takahashi during a party during the Olympic Games in Sochi, suggesting it was sexual harassment or power harassment. She later apologized, and Takahashi said he did not feel harassed.
“I’m sorry for my reckless actions about an action I took seven years ago,” she said on Thursday when asked about it. “Then as well as today I still think about myself and what I did – and in what it developed.”
It is also reported that two other former Olympians participated in Mori’s task: Yasuhiro Yamashita, the president of the Japanese Olympic Committee who won gold in judo in 1984, and Mikako Kotani, who won two bronze medals in synchronized swimming in 1988. Games in Seoul.
Kotani is the sports director of the Olympic Organizing Committee in Tokyo. The leadership of the committee is dominated by men, who make up 80% of the executive council.
Japan on Wednesday began exporting vaccines, a critical step that could bolster the Olympics. It is a few months behind Britain, the United States and other countries.
Widespread vaccination is unlikely in Japan when the Olympic Games open on July 23 with 11,000 athletes, followed by the Paralympic Games on August 24 with 4,400 athletes. The plan is to keep the athletes in a ‘bubble’ at the Athletes Village, at venues and on training areas. The IOC said the participants did not need to be vaccinated, but encouraged it.
In addition to the athletes, tens of thousands of officials, media, sponsors and broadcasters will also have to enter Japan. Many of them will perform outside the ‘bubble’ in a television-powered Olympics and the billions the IOC receives from the sale of broadcasting rights.
The first challenge for Hashimoto may be to pick up the torch relay that begins on March 25 in northeastern Japan. It will traverse the country with about 10,000 runners and end at the opening ceremony in Tokyo.
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