TOKYO: A Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics organizing committee panel to choose candidates for the committee’s new president to succeed Yoshiro Mori, who is set to quit over his recent sexist remarks, is considering offering the post to Seiko Hashimoto, minister for the games, informed sources said Wednesday.

If Hashimoto, 56, a former Olympic speed skater and cyclist, accepts the offer, the committee is expected to formalize her appointment as new president during the Executive Board meeting after carrying out necessary procedures, the sources said.

“I haven’t heard anything,” Hashimoto told reporters on Wednesday. She said later: “Things are going on based on the (selection) procedures. This is a personnel affair, so I have nothing more to say about it.”

Hashimoto competed in a total of seven summer and winter Olympic Games. She won a bronze medal for women’s 1,500-meter speed skating in the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. She won her first seat on the Diet, Japan’s parliament, in the 1995 election for the House of Councillors. She is in her fifth term as an Upper House lawmaker and has been serving as minister for the Tokyo Games since 2019.

At an extraordinary meeting on Friday, the organizing committee decided to establish the panel for selecting candidates for its new president. At its first meeting Tuesday, the panel drew up five criteria for the next head, including knowledge of the Olympics and Paralympics, understanding of gender equality and diversity, and international sensibility.

On Wednesday, the panel held its second meeting, behind closed doors, starting discussions to select candidates based on proposals from each member.

Officials of the organizing committee said that the third session of the panel and a meeting of the Executive Board will be held on Thursday.

The candidate selection panel comprises eight members–four men and four women.

The male members are the panel’s head Fujio Mitarai, honorary president of the Tokyo Games organizing committee, Tokyo Vice Governor Mitsuchika Tarao, Koji Murofushi, commissioner of the Japan Sports Agency, and Yasuhiro Yamashita, president of the Japanese Olympic Committee.

The female members are Yuko Arakida, a member of the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Program Committee, Rie Tanaka, a former Olympic gymnast, Ayumi Tanimoto, a former Olympic judoka, and Paralympic swimmer Mayumi Narita.

On Friday, Mori announced his decision to resign as president of the committee after he came under fire both at home and abroad for his remarks earlier this month that meetings attended by many women tend to be prolonged.

Last Thursday, the day before the announcement, Mori asked former Japan Football Association President Saburo Kawabuchi to assume the post after his resignation.

Kawabuchi, now one of the councillors of the organizing committee and supreme adviser at the football association, was initially positive about accepting the request, but he eventually declined the offer after the government of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga indicated its disapproval.

Mori was criticized for making moves to select his successor behind the scenes.

JIJI