Japan's record haul of gold medals did not make the issues that dogged the Tokyo Games go away, as a stunt by the mayor of Nagoya showed this week.

After an Olympics plagued by coronavirus concerns and preceded by a scandal that forced the Tokyo Games' organizing committee to resign over sexist comments, Takashi Kawamura, the 72-year-old mayor of the central Japan metropolis, is under fire for flouting coronavirus protocols and making inappropriate comments to a 20-year-old woman softball champion.

Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura bites the gold medal of Tokyo Games Olympian Miu Goto, a member of the Japan softball team, at the Nagoya city hall in Aichi Prefecture on Aug. 4, 2021. (Kyodo)

When national team pitcher Miu Goto visited the city hall in her hometown of Nagoya, Kawamura met with her, and while posing for photos with her removed his mask and put her medal between his teeth.

He also asked Goto, who plays for the locally-based Toyota Red Terriers, if she was "prohibited from having romantic relationships."

Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura speaks at a press conference in his office building on Aug. 12, 2021. (Kyodo)

On Thursday, Kawamura apologized for his remarks, saying he went too far and revealed that he would take a course on sexual harassment and reflect on his responsibility.

"It may be that my understanding may have been lacking," Kawamura said. "I will not say things that may be perceived as constituting that (sexual harassment)."

In February, while the future of the Tokyo Olympics, postponed one year from 2020 due to the pandemic, appeared uncertain, a scandal over sexist remarks forced the original organizing committee president, Yoshiro Mori, to step down.

Amid calls to increase female participation in leadership positions, Mori warned a Japanese Olympic Committee meeting that "a board meeting with plenty of women will make it drag on."

The scandal took place as many Japanese residents questioned the wisdom of holding the games at all during a pandemic. A Kyodo News poll in mid-June showed that around 86 percent of people in Japan were concerned about a rebound in COVID-19 cases if the Tokyo Games were staged this summer.

On Aug. 5, three days before the closing ceremony, Tokyo hit a record 5,042 new infections.

And as Kawamura's careless behavior suggests, Japan's record 27 gold medals in Tokyo may have grabbed headlines, but they are gone and did little or nothing to alleviate more fundamental social issues.


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