As if Corona wasn’t enough, one scandal follows another among the Olympic organizers in Tokyo. Now the creative director of the opening ceremony has been fired for joking around the Holocaust. It’s just the latest in a series of scandals.
A series of scandals among Japan’s Olympic makers overshadows the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Just a day before the ceremony at Tokyo Olympic Stadium, organizers released the celebration’s creative director, Kentaro Kobayashi, from his duties on Thursday. The occasion was the appearance of a video of an appearance by the former comedian in 1998, in which he made fun of the Holocaust. “Any association of this person with the Tokyo Olympics would insult the memory of six million Jews and cruelly mock the Paralympics,” commented Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Japan’s head of organization Seiko Hashimoto apologized for the recent scandal. Just four days earlier, the composer for the opening ceremony, the Japanese Keigo Oyamada – also known in the West under the name Cornelius – had resigned for bullying disabled children during his school days. Hashimoto regretted on Thursday that it had taken too long to part with Oyamada.
“Olympig” – no idea too tasteless
The entire current program of the opening should now be carefully checked again, said OK managing director Toshiro Muto. One will now advise quickly how the ceremony should be held and come to the result “as soon as possible”, said Hashimoto.
In March, the then creative director for the Tokyo Summer Games, Hiroshi Sasaki, resigned from his post because of humiliating remarks about a well-known Japanese entertainer. He had admitted to telling staff the idea that corpulent comedian Naomi Watanabe might appear dressed as a pig at the opening ceremony of the Games. In a pink costume, she would appear as an “Olympian,” the Japanese quipped – pig means pig in English.
Business bosses stay away from the Olympic opening
Before him, the then Olympic organizer Yoshiro Mori had also resigned because of sexist comments. His successor Hashimoto took responsibility for the latest scandals on Thursday, but does not want to resign. It is their job to make the games a “great success”. She will work for this until the end. Meanwhile, several leading Japanese business figures, including the head of the automotive giant and top Olympic sponsor Toyota, have already announced that they will not be attending the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games.
The Japanese TV station NHK reported on Thursday that the former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also wanted to stay away from her. Abe was instrumental in ensuring that Tokyo was awarded the games in 2013 despite the worsening problems in the Fukushima nuclear ruin by assuring the IOC that “everything was under control” there.
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
