TOKYO (Reuters) – Yoshiro Mori, president of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizing committee, is set to step down over sexist remarks he made that women talked too much, the Fuji News Network reported on Thursday.
The comments, made at a Japanese Olympic Committee board meeting in the first week of February, set off a firestorm at home and abroad and could become the latest obstacle to the 2020 Summer Games, already postponed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
At a hastily called news conference on Feb. 4, Mori, 83, retracted his remarks and said they were “inappropriate” and against the Olympic spirit, but he declined, at that point, to resign.
A former prime minister whose tenure was marred by gaffes and blunders, Mori’s comments drew sharp comments on social media and in parliament, with opposition lawmakers demanding his resignation.
(Reporting by Elaine Lies and Takashi Umekawa; Editing by Kim Coghill, Robert Birsel)
