Page 16 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
March 1, 2021
Seiko Hashimoto takes over
as Tokyo Olympic president
By Stephen Wade
AP Sports Writer
OKYO — Seiko
Hashimoto
has
appeared in seven
Olympics, four in the
winter and three in the
summer — the most by any
“multi-season” athlete in
the games.
She made even more
history last month in
Japan, where women are
still rare in the boardrooms
and positions of political
power.
The 56-year-old Hashi-
moto was named president
of the Tokyo Olympic
organizing committee after
a meeting of its executive
board, which is 80% male.
She replaces 83-year-old
Yoshiro Mori, a former
Japanese prime minister
who was forced to resign
after
making
sexist
comments about women.
Essentially, he said
women talk too much.
“Now I’m here to return
what I owe as an athlete
and to return back what I
received,” Hashimoto told
the board, according to an
interpreter.
Hashimoto had been
serving as the Olympic
minister in the cabinet of
Prime Minister Yoshihide
Suga. She also held a port-
folio dealing with gender
equality and women’s
empowerment. She said
she would be replaced as
Olympic
minister
by
Tamayo Marukawa.
She brought up the issue
of
gender
equality
repeatedly, and focused on
problems at the organizing
committee, which is male-
dominated, has no female
vice presidents, and has an
executive board made up of
80% men. It employs about
3,500 people.
“Of course, it is very
important what Tokyo
2020 as an organizing
committee does about
gender equality,” she said,
sitting between two males
— CEO Toshiro Muto and
spokesman Masa Takaya.
“I think it will be important
for Tokyo 2020 to practice
equality.”
International Olympic
Committee (IOC) presi-
dent 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
with regard to gender
equality,” Bach said in a
statement.
Hashimoto competed in
cycling in three Summer
Olympics (1988, 1992, and
1996) and in speedskating
in four Winter Olympics
(1984, 1988, 1992, and
1994). She won a bronze
medal — her only medal —
at the 1992 Albertville
T
Games in speedskating.
According to historian
Dr. Bill Mallon, her seven
appearances is the most by
any “multi-season” athlete
in the games.
Japan-born
Naomi
Osaka, speaking about
Hashimoto after her semi-
final victory over Serena
Williams at the Australian
Open, said “you’re seeing
the newer generation not
tolerate a lot of things.”
“I feel like it’s really good
because you’re pushing
forward, barriers are being
broken down, especially for
females,”
Osaka
said.
“We’ve had to fight for so
many things just to be
equal. Even a lot of things
we still aren’t equal.”
The new president is tied
to the Olympics in many
ways. She was born in
Hokkaido in northern
Japan just five days before
the opening ceremony of
the 1964 Tokyo Games.
Her name “Seiko” comes
from “seika,” which trans-
lates as Olympic flame in
English.
According to widely cir-
culated reports in Japan,
Hashimoto was reluctant
to take the job and was one
of three final candidates
considered by a selection
committee
headed
by
85-year-old Fujio Mitarai
of the camera company
Canon.
The selection committee
met for three consecutive
days, a rushed appoint-
ment with the postponed
Olympics opening in just
over five months in the
middle of a pandemic and
facing myriad problems.
Polls show about 80% of
the Japanese public want
the Olympics cancelled or
postponed again. There is
fear about bringing tens of
thousands of athletes and
others into Japan, which
has controlled the corona-
virus better than most
countries.
There is also opposition
to the soaring costs.
The official cost is $15.4
billion, though several
government audits say the
price is at least $25 billion,
the most expensive Sum-
mer Olympics on record
according to a University of
Oxford study.
Naming a woman could
be a breakthrough for
gender equality in Japan,
where
females
are
under-represented
in
boardrooms and in politics.
Japan ranks 121st out of
153 countries on the World
Economic Forum’s annual
gender equality ranking.
Mori, before stepping
down, tried to offer the job
to
84-year-old
Saburo
Kawabuchi, a former head
of the country’s soccer
federation. But reports of
the
behind-closed-door
deal were widely criticized
by social media, on
Japanese talk shows, and
in newspaper reports.
Kawabuchi
quickly
withdrew from further
consideration.
Hashimoto
is
not
without her critics. A
Japanese magazine in
2014 ran photographs of
her kissing figure skater
Daisuke Takahashi at a
party during the Sochi
Olympics, suggesting it
was sexual harassment, or
power harassment. She
Continued on page 12
OLYMPIC TASK. Seiko Hashimoto, left, president of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic organizing committee,
and Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike, right, bump elbows as a greeting before their brief talk in Tokyo last month.
Hashimoto appeared in seven Olympics — four in the winter and three in the summer — the most by any
“multi-season” athlete in the Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
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