Tokyo Olympics: Committee president Yoshiro Mori quits over sexist remarks

Tokyo must find a new president to lead this year’s Olympics prep after Yoshiro Mori resigned over his inappropriate comments about women board members.

Bernadette Wallace and C2 partner Josephine Bulmer in action. Pic: Paddle Australia

Tokyo’s to-do list to prepare the Japanese capital to host the Olympics and Paralympics later this year just got a little longer.

As if there wasn’t enough to sort out with less than six months remaining before the Opening Ceremony, the organising committee is now on the hunt for a new president after Yoshiro Mori resigned following the global outcry to his sexist comments that women board members talk too much.

A former Prime Minister, Mori was astute enough to realise that his apology was not enough and he had to stand down so as not to detract from the preparations, but his departure has left organisers in a pickle with his successor still to be chosen.

“We will also consider specific actions to take ... regarding how we can use this opportunity to further promote gender equality in society,” organisers said.

Tokyo Olympics boss Toshiro Muto has resigned over inappropriate comments. Picture: Yoshikazu Tsuno – Pool/Getty Images

Positive signs

There are some brighter signs on the horizon for embattled organisers despite another poll finding locals have little enthusiasm for the Games going ahead in the midst of the pandemic.

The release of the last of the playbooks on how the Games will proceed safely has generally been well received and renewed confidence the Games remain on track.

American television giant NBC has now announced it will kick off its broadcast with an unprecedented 18 hours coverage on day one, including a live morning broadcast of the opening Ceremony.

And the Japanese government has confirmed it will start vaccinations as early as next week after receiving an initial batch of 400,000 doses on Friday.

Aussie boost

Brisbane’s bid to host the 2032 Olympics received another timely kickalong this week when the Queensland capital was awarded the 2026 BMX world championships.

Featuring 3,000 of the world’s best riders, the championships will take place at the Sleeman Sports Complex BMX Supercross Track, one of the likely venues if Southeast Queensland gets the nod for 2032.

Australia is emerging as a safe go to choice for major sports events with Wollongong already awarded the 2022 road cycling world championships.

What’s coming up this week?

The Australian softball squad is conducting a national training camp at the Australian Institute of Sport.

The Australian Beach Volleyball Tour is heading to Manly next weekend.

Some of Australia’s top athletes have entered the ACT Championships, as part of their build up to the national trials in April. However the 20km race walking titles in Adelaide have been postponed because a lot of the entrants were coming from Melbourne.

MEET AUSTRALIA’S MOST INSPIRATIONAL OLYMPIAN

The first time Bernadette Wallace entered the Australian Olympic trials, she didn’t even try to make the team.

She was among six women vying for the three remaining spots in the team for Rio, but when the starter’s gun was fired, she just let herself slowly float down the course, lacking both the energy and the will to paddle her guts out.

Heavily bandaged and recovering from recent surgery, Wallace already knew she wasn’t going to Brazil because she had just been diagnosed with skin cancer and the prognosis was not good.

Bernadette Wallace and Josie Bulmer have their eyes on the golden prize in Tokyo.

A little freckle, hidden behind one of her ears, that had been removed a year earlier, had turned nasty.

It was a melanoma and the doctors told her she had a 50 per cent of surviving another five years.

That was in 2016 and Wallace was 26 at the time, so the notion of spending four precious years training for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics never entered her mind.

“My whole focus was on surviving this melanoma and what I could do in the next six months because, to be honest, I was too s**t scared to think beyond that,” she said.

“I was getting scans every six months so I couldn’t make plans for anything past each of those blocks in case something went wrong, so I just focused on some other goals I wanted to do.”

At the top of her bucket list was to live and work overseas, so she took a job in Canada as a canoe instructor, even though her own experience was limited to kayaking.

Bernadette Wallace and Josie Bulmer have formed a successful combination.

Super fit and ambitious, Wallace’s success was almost taken for granted because her older brother Ken is a legend of the sport, winning a gold and a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

He also won another bronze in Rio, which Bernadette watched on television from Canada, but her thoughts and priorities were no longer focused on kayaking.

It was during her time in Canada that she got hooked on canoeing, the traditional discipline where competitors kneel instead of sitting down, and use only a single bladed paddle.

Partly inspired by the teenagers she was coaching, and a chance meeting with Josie Bulmer, canoeing gave her a new focus.

“Josie was training at the same camp I was working at and she came up to me and said ‘hey, you’re actually pretty, would you like to do C2 (pairs) together and I said sure,” Wallace said.

“I was enjoying this whole new side of paddling that I didn’t really know and it made me want to set a goal that was longer than six months, though I didn’t want to focus on Tokyo too much because it was still scary to think that far down the track in case the next scan was a bad scan.”

Wallace at the 2019 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Germany.

It was only four months before the Australian trials, in early 2020, that Wallace allowed herself to say out loud that she wanted to go to the Tokyo Olympics.

There was no holding back when she entered the trials for the second time, as she promptly qualified for both the singles (C1) and doubles (C2), but there was a twist.

She and her best mate Josie were overcome with emotion but told not to celebrate just yet.

The official team naming was on hold because the world was in the early stages of trying to contain the coronavirus.

“It was the last day before everything shut down so we were told we weren’t allowed to tell anyone just in case things changed, so it was very confusing,” Wallace said.

“For me, and everything that I’d been through, just making the team showed me how resilient I can be but because so many other people were suffering, I didn’t want to show my joy.

“So I just kept quiet and went back to training the next day.”

Wallace’s brother Ken won gold at the 2008 Olympics.

When the announcement was made that the Tokyo Olympics were being delayed for 12 months, Wallace was already prepared for the bombshell.

The good news was her place in the team was confirmed after officials agreed that anyone who had already qualified would retain tier spots but the best news was all her scans had come back clear and she could look forward to competing in 2021.

“There’s still a lot of people questioning whether the Olympics are still happening but I’m not wasting a second thinking about it,” Wallace said.

“Five years ago, the question for me was will I make the good 50% or the bad 50%, so I just had to live my life for the best possible circumstance and that’s the same attitude I have for the Olympics.

“There are so many more people than just athletes that want this to go ahead and I really think it will help unite the world.

‘I know when I line up, I will look at the person next to me and congratulate them on getting to the starting line.

“I know their journey will be different from all the crazy stuff I’ve been through but I’ll also know that they have been through a lot to get there and the biggest respect I can show my competitors and myself and my team and all the people that are helping this event go in is just to race to the best of my ability on the day.”