Female Olympian to take charge of Tokyo Games after sexism row

Seiko Hashimoto was named president of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee

Credit: Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty Images/Bloomberg

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 on Thursday in Japan, where women are still rare in the boardrooms and positions of political power.

The 56-year-old Ms Hashimoto was named president of the Tokyo Olympic organising committee after a meeting of its executive board, which is 80 per cent male.

She replaces 83-year-old Yoshiro Mori, a former Japanese prime minister who was forced to resign last week after making sexist comments about women.

"Now I’m here to return what I owe as an athlete and to return back what I received," Ms Hashimoto told the board, according to an interpreter.

Ms Hashimoto had been serving as the Olympic minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. She also held a portfolio dealing with gender equality and women’s empowerment. 

"Of course, it is very important what Tokyo 2020 as an organising committee does about gender equality," she said, sitting between two men — CEO Toshiro Muto and spokesman Masa Takaya. "I think it will be important for Tokyo 2020 to practice equality."

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said Ms 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," Mr Bach said in a statement.

Ms Hashimoto competed in cycling in three Summer Olympics and in speedskating in four Winter Olympics. She won a bronze medal — her only medal — at the 1992 Albertville Games in speedskating.

Japan-born Naomi Osaka, speaking about Ms 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," Ms 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 translates as Olympic flame in English.

According to widely circulated 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 appointment with the postponed Olympics opening in just over five months in the middle of a pandemic and facing myriad problems.

Polls show about 80 per cent 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 coronavirus 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 Summer 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.

Ms 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 later apologised, and Mr Takahashi said he did not feel harassed.

"About my reckless actions, I feel regret for an action I took seven years ago," she said when asked about it on Thursday. "Back then as well as today, I am still reflecting on myself and what I have done — and what it has evolved into."