A storm 24 hours after the opening ceremony, 23 years after a sudden joke about the Holocaust. The Tokyo 2020 gaffe gold medal has already been “awarded”. On the eve of the inauguration …
A storm 24 hours after the opening ceremony, 23 years after a sudden joke about the Holocaust. The Tokyo 2020 gaffe gold medal has already been “awarded”. On the eve of the inauguration, it was won by the artistic director, or rather the now former artistic director, of the opening ceremony, Kentaro Kobaayshi, who jumped to the disgrace of the news for an unfortunate 1998 sketch on the Holocaust. The comedian, well known in the Japanese show business, was fired, although the organizing committee, all too diplomatically, point out that it was a resignation. Kobayashi’s gaffe, re-emerged after 23 years, is just the latest installment of the curse of an “Olympic preparation” marked by missteps on sexism and bullying which, in some ways, seem very far from the reality of 2021. In recent months they had Three others had to leave, including the former president of Tokyo 2020, Yoshiro Mori, according to whom women, in meetings, “talk too much”. During the press conference in which the departure of Kobayashi was announced, the president of Tokyo 2020, Seiko Hashimoto (who took over from Mori), highlighted that “now the organizers are working on how to manage the ceremony”.