TOKYO – Japan’s former Olympic minister Seiko Hashimoto became Tokyo 2020’s new president today, capping an embarrassing sexism row with just over five months until the virus-postponed Games.
“I will spare no effort for the success of the Tokyo Games,” said Hashimoto after being appointed.
She stepped down as one of just two women in Japan’s cabinet earlier today to take the key post.
Hashimoto is a seven-time Olympian and was one of just two women in Japan’s cabinet until she took the job.
The 56-year-old politician, who was also minister for gender equality and women’s empowerment, will replace Yoshiro Mori, 83, after he sparked uproar with claims that women talk too much in meetings.
Hashimoto entered politics in the 1990s and after a period balancing sports and statecraft, her final Games as an athlete was in 1996, and she began to work her way up the ranks of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Following Mori’s sexist remarks, Hashimoto said she wanted to hold “thorough discussions” with the Tokyo Olympics boss about his views.
“The Olympics’ fundamental principle is to promote women’s advancement in sport at all levels and organisations in order to realise gender equality,” she said.
But Hashimoto is no stranger to controversy herself.
In 2014, she faced a sexual harassment scandal after photos emerged of her hugging and kissing a male figure skater over 20 years her junior.
Purportedly taken at a booze-fuelled party in Russia’s Sochi after the Winter Olympics, the images appeared to show Daisuke Takahashi in the clutches of Hashimoto, head of the Japanese delegation to Sochi.
Takahashi said he regretted the drunken moment but did not think he had been harassed by the married Hashimoto, who apologised for any “misunderstanding” caused by the photos.
As Tokyo Olympics boss, Hashimoto faces an uphill struggle to convince a sceptical Japanese public the event can be held safely this summer despite the pandemic.
She has called cancellation or another postponement “inconceivable”, echoing the sentiments of Tokyo 2020 organisers and the International Olympic Committee.
“For the Games next year, athletes are continuing to work hard in the environments they find themselves in. So I feel we have to hold it at any cost,” she said in September. – AFP, February 18, 2021
