Tokyo Olympics: Minister Seiko Hashimoto takes the reins after a sexist scandal

Seiko Hashimoto, the new president of the Tokyo Olympic Games Organizing Committee, here at a press conference in Tokyo on September 19, 2019. AP

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This 56-year-old former athlete and Minister of the Olympic Games in the Japanese government of Yoshihide Suga was appointed president at the head of the Tokyo Olympics this Thursday, February 18, after the resignation of Yoshiro Mori following comments deemed sexist.

Seiko Hashimoto has also participated in seven Olympics as a skater and cyclist.

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With our correspondent in Tokyo,

Frédéric Charles

Seiko Hashimoto, born five days before the Tokyo Games - those of 1964 - learned from birth that it was not easy to live in a world built like man.

" 

My father had left us, my mother and I, at the maternity ward to go to the opening ceremony

 ," she recalls.

He had named it Seiko, in reference to the Olympic flame.

She herself will realize her dream of participating as an athlete in the Games on several occasions.

Subsequently, Seiko Hashimoto joined a Japanese political world dominated by men who persist in maintaining, in the tone of joke, sexist and discriminatory remarks against women.

Politicians disconnected from their time, like

Yoshiro Mori

, his predecessor as head of the organizing committee for the upcoming Tokyo Games, who said that women in meetings talk too much and it's annoying.

Outcry abroad

Without the outcry abroad over these comments, the Tokyo Games committee might not have chosen a woman to succeed Yoshiro Mori.

Her favorite was a man, Yasuhiro Yamashita, a gold medalist in judo. 

No wonder Seiko Hashimoto, it is said, was reluctant to lead a Tokyo Games committee, also dominated by men.

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To read also: On the front page: Yoshiro Mori resigns, the Tokyo Olympics still uncertain

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  • Japan

  • Olympic Games

  • Womens rights

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Headlines: Yoshiro Mori resigns, Tokyo Olympics still uncertain