Moris steps down over sexist remarks
TOKYO: Tokyo 2020 Olympics chief Yoshiro Mori resigned yesterday and again apologised for sexist remarks that sparked a global outcry, leaving the troubled Olympics searching for a chief five months from the start.
The resignation of Mori (83), a former prime minister, only months before the postponed Summer Games are scheduled to begin, will further erode confidence in the organisers’ ability to pull off the event during the Covid19 pandemic.
Among candidates considered to succeed him is Olympics Minister Seiko Hashimoto, media said.
Hashimoto (56) is a seventime Olympian and pioneering female politician. Her first name is based on the Japanese words for the Olympic flame and she was born just days before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics opened.
Mori, a former Japanese prime minister, sparked a furore when he said during an Olympic committee meeting earlier this month that women talk too much, setting off a global outcry for him to be sacked though he refused to step down.
‘‘My inappropriate comments caused a big trouble. I am sorry,’’ Mori said at the start of a meeting of senior officials on the organising committee yesterday, adding that the most important thing now is for the Tokyo Olympics to be a success.
Mori said that although he might have said something unnecessary, he did not do it intentionally and felt his comments were misinterpreted by the media, adding he was not prejudiced against women.
‘‘I have been trying to support women as much as possible, and I have been trying to support women more than men so they can speak . . . ’’ he said.
‘‘There were times when people would not put their hands up and not speak up, and I would go out of my way to say ‘please speak’ and I feel that women have been able to speak a lot.’’
Mori on Thursday had asked the mayor of the Olympic Village, Saburo Kawabuchi (84) to take over the top position, but by yesterday public criticism of his handpicked successor as another older male reportedly saw Kawabuchi turn down the job.
The Mori controversy has done ‘‘serious reputational damage’’ to the Tokyo Olympics, one source involved in the Olympics said. — Reuters