The 56-year-old Hashimoto 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 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,” she told the board, speaking through an interpreter in Japanese.
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 speaking to the nearly all-male audience. Although the leader is now a woman, the issue of gender inequity in Japan remains.
“As the background to my selection, I understand that there is a gender-parity related factor,”she said. She said she hoped to work on the issue but was not specific.
Hashimoto competed in three Summer Olympics (’88, ‘92 and ’96) in cycling and in four Winter Olympics (’84, ’88, ‘92 and ’94) in speed skating. She won a bronze medal — her only medal — in 1992 in at 1,500 meters in speed skating.
The first challenge for Hashimoto could be pulling off the torch relay that begins on March 25 in northeastern Japan. It will crisscross the country with about 10,000 runners, and end at the opening ceremony in Tokyo.
