TOKYO (AP) – Seiko Hashimoto has appeared at seven Olympics, four in the winter and three in the summer – the most by any athlete with multiple seasons in the games.
She made even more history in Japan on Thursday, where women are still rare in boardrooms and political positions.
56-year-old Hashimoto was appointed chairman of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee after a meeting of the board of directors, which is 80% male. She replaces 83-year-old Yoshiro Mori, a former Japanese prime minister who was forced to resign last week after sexist comments 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 return what I have received,” Hashimoto told the board, according to an interpreter.
Hashimoto served as the Olympic minister in Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s cabinet. She also had a portfolio on gender equality and women’s empowerment. She said she would be replaced by Tamayo Marukawa as an Olympic minister.
She raised the issue of gender equality repeatedly, focusing on issues at the organizing committee, which is male-dominated, has no female vice-presidents, and an 80% male board of directors. About 3,500 people work there.
“It is of course very important what Tokyo 2020 as an organizing committee does for gender equality,” she said in between two men – CEO Toshiro Muto and spokesman Masa Takaya. “I think it will be important for Tokyo 2020 to put equality into practice.”
Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, said Hashimoto was “the perfect choice” for the job.
“With the nomination 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 competed in cycling at three Summer Olympics (1988, 1992 and 1996) and in ice skating at four Winter Olympics (1984, 1988, 1992 and 1994). She won a bronze medal – her only medal – at the 1992 Albertville Games in speed skating.
According to historian Dr. Bill Mallon her seven appearances are the most of any athlete with multiple seasons in the competitions.
Naomi Osaka, born in Japan, spoke about Hashimoto after her semi-final win over Serena Williams at the Australian Open, saying, “You see the newer generation doesn’t tolerate many things.”
“I feel like it’s really good because you’re moving forward, barriers are being broken down, especially for women,” said Osaka. “We had to fight for so many things to be equal. Even many things are still not right. “
The new president is in many ways linked to the Olympic Games. She was born in Hokkaido in northern Japan, just five days before the Tokyo Games opening ceremony in 1964. Her name “Seiko” comes from “seika,” which translates in English as Olympic flame.
According to many scattered reports in Japan, Hashimoto was reluctant to take the job and was one of the last three candidates considered by a selection committee led by 85-year-old Fujio Mitarai of the camera company Canon.
The selection committee met for three consecutive days, a hasty appointment with the delayed Olympic Games opening in just over five months in the midst of a pandemic and with numerous problems.
Polls show that about 80% of the Japanese public wants the Olympics to be canceled or postponed again. There is a fear of bringing tens of thousands of athletes and others to Japan, which has controlled the coronavirus better than most countries.
There has also been opposition to the skyrocketing costs.
The official cost is $ 15.4 billion, despite several government audits say the prize is at least $ 25 billion, the most expensive Summer Olympics ever recorded according to a study from the University of Oxford.
Naming a woman could be a breakthrough for gender equality in Japan, where women are under-represented in boardrooms and politics. Japan ranks 121st out of 153 countries in the World Economic Forum’s annual gender equality ranking.
Before Mori stepped down, he tried last week to offer the job to 84-year-old Saburo Kawabuchi, a former head of the country’s football federation. But reports of the behind-closed-door deal have been widely criticized by social media, on Japanese talk shows and in newspaper reports.
Kawabuchi quickly withdrew from further consideration.
Hashimoto is not without its critics. A Japanese magazine published photos of her kissing figure skater Daisuke Takahashi at a party during the Olympics in Sochi in 2014, suggesting that it was sexual harassment or power problems. She later apologized and Takahashi said he didn’t feel bothered.
“About my reckless actions I regret an action I took seven years ago,” she said when asked about it on Thursday. “Then as now I am still thinking about myself and what I have done – and what it has evolved into.”
Two other former Olympians are also said to have been in the running for Mori’s job: Yasuhiro Yamashita, the chairman of the Japan Olympic Committee who won gold in judo in 1984, and Mikako Kotani, who won two bronze medals in synchronized swimming in 1988. Olympic Games in Seoul.
Kotani is the Sports Director of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee. The leadership of that committee is dominated by men, who make up 80% of the board of directors.
Japan began rolling out vaccines on Wednesday, a critical step that could boost the Olympics. It is several months behind Britain, the United States and other countries.
Widespread vaccination is unlikely in Japan when the Olympics begin 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 training areas. The IOC has said it does not require “participants” to be vaccinated, but encourages 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 operate outside of the “bubble” during an Olympics powered by television and the billions the IOC receives from the sale of broadcast rights.
The first challenge for Hashimoto could be to pull off the torch relay that begins March 25 in northeastern Japan. It will cross the country with about 10,000 runners, ending at the opening ceremony in Tokyo.
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