Seiko Hashimoto takes over as Tokyo Olympic president
TOKYO — 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.
Hashimoto, 56, was named president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee after a meeting of its executive board, which is 80 percent 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.
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 portfolio 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 male-dominated organizing committee. 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 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 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 Games in speedskating. According to historian Dr. Bill Mallon, her seven appearances is the most by any “multi-season” athlete in the games.
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 apologized, and 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.”