A page is turning in the Japanese Olympic movement. Less than 500 days before the Tokyo 2020 Games, it was neither expected nor hoped for. It leaves a gray area and a lot of questions.
Tsunekazu Takeda, 71, announced this Tuesday March 19 in Tokyo his resignation from the Japanese National Olympic Committee (JOC). A decision forced by circumstances. He is the object of an investigation by French justice into suspicions of corruption in the awarding of the Summer Games to Tokyo in 2020.
The former rider, selected for the Munich Games in 1972 and Montreal four years later, announced his decision during a meeting of the JOC board of directors. But he is expected to remain in office until the end of his mandate in June 2019.
The information was confirmed in the middle of the afternoon in Japan by the agency Kyodo News. She quotes the governor of Tokyo, Yoriko Koike, contacted by telephone by Tsunekazu Takeda to inform her of her resignation.
In the process, Tsunekazu Takeda also returns his IOC member cap. He had been a member since 2012. He chaired the marketing committee. But the Japanese has not attended any meeting of the institution since the start of the year.
In Japan, the affair caused a stir. At 71 years old, Tsunekazu Takeda reigns over the Olympic movement with the manner of a property owner. He has been president of the JOC since 2001. His current term is his tenth.
It should have been his penultimate. The Japanese leader had expressed his wish to keep his seat until the Tokyo 2020 Games. A way of coming full circle, after having led the bid committee.
Until recent weeks, his request had been accepted as obvious. The Japanese Olympic Committee was even preparing to revise its statutes, to modify the article relating to the age limit of members of the board of directors, initially set at 70 years.
But since the revelations of his hearing by the French courts last January, Tsunekazu Takeda has seen his image and reputation, until then impeccable, wrinkle like an old jacket. Summoned to explain himself, he organized a press conference on January 15. It lasted 7 minutes, not one more, during which the Japanese read a press release without accepting a single question from the audience.
Certainly, Tsunekazu Takeda has always proclaimed his innocence. But the pressure ended up being too much. The investigation he is the subject of does not only affect the Japanese Olympic committee. In turn, it affects the Tokyo 2020 Games and the IOC. The former, like the latter, can hardly afford such a crisis of confidence.
Exit, then, Tsunekazu Takeda. The Japanese joins the bench of infamy of the international Olympic movement, where he will notably find Lamine Diack, Carlos Nuzman, Frankie Fredericks and Patrick Hickey.
In Japan, the name of his successor is not yet officially known, but his silhouette can already be seen in the corridors of the national Olympic committee. According to several sources, the presidential seat should soon be occupied by one of the legends of national sport.
Yasuhiro Yamashita (photo above), 61, Olympic heavyweight judo champion in Los Angeles in 1984, is well ahead of the succession candidates. He already chairs the JOC sports commission. Above all, he has carved out a solid reputation as a leader for having been able to get Japanese judo out of the crisis, in 2013, after the revelations of attacks on some of the country's best fighters by coaches of the national team.
