Tokyo Olympics: Games’ opening ceremony director SACKED on the eve of the event over Holocaust jokes

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Organisers of the Tokyo Olympics have sacked the director of the opening ceremony just a day before the event takes place in the latest blow to the troubles Games. 

Kantaro Kobayashi, a 48-year-old comedian, was fired after a skit he performed in 1998 that made light of Nazi genocide resurfaced, including the moment he told his audience: ‘Let’s play Holocaust’. 

Seiko Hashimoto, president of Tokyo’s Olympic committee, said Kobayashi’s entire ceremony is now being ‘reviewed’ just hours before it is due to be performed, adding: ‘We’re still considering how to hold the opening ceremony tomorrow’.

The comedian is just the latest big name to be sacked from the Olympic organising team this week after the opening ceremony composer was fired and a popular children’s author withdrew from a cultural event – both over historic bullying claims.

Meanwhile the number of Covid cases linked to the Games rose to 91 including another athlete – Czech table tennis player Pavel Sirucek – amid fears the already-unpopular competition could turn into a super-spreader event. 

In the sketch, Kobayashi and a comedy partner pretend to be a pair of famous children’s TV entertainers.

As they brainstorm an activity involving paper, Kobayashi refers to some paper doll cutouts, describing them as ‘the ones from that time you said ‘let’s play the Holocaust”, sparking laughter from the audience.

The pair then joke about how a television producer was angered by the suggestion of a Holocaust activity.

In a statement, Kobayashi apologised, describing the skit as containing ‘extremely inappropriate’ lines.

‘It was from a time when I was not able to get laughs the way I wanted, and I believe I was trying to grab people’s attention in a shallow-minded way.’

Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human rights group based in Los Angeles, said: ‘Any person, no matter how creative, does not have the right to mock the victims of the Nazi genocide. 

‘Any association of this person to the Tokyo Olympics would insult the memory of 6 million Jews and make a cruel mockery of the Paralympics.’

Kobayashi, a well-known figure in theatre in Japan, is the latest member of the opening ceremony team to depart in disgrace.

The creative director for the opening and closing ceremonies, Hiroshi Sasaki, resigned in March after suggesting a plus-size female comedian appear as a pig – referring to her as an ‘Olympig’.

And on Monday, composer Keigo Oyamada, whose music was expected to be used at the ceremony, was forced to resign because of past bullying of his classmates, which he boasted about in magazine interviews.  

A four-minute musical piece he composed was removed from the ceremony, but organisers left it unclear Thursday how Kobayashi’s firing might affect the event.

‘We’re still considering how to hold the opening ceremony tomorrow,’ Hashimoto said. ‘I want to reach a conclusion as quickly as possible.’

Details of the opening ceremony have been kept under wraps, and strict coronavirus rules mean only around 950 people will be in the stands of the 68,000-capacity Olympic Stadium for the extravaganza.

Tokyo 2020 has been plagued by a series of gaffes and missteps by Olympic officials, including Hashimoto’s predecessor Yoshiro Mori, who resigned after claiming women speak too much in meetings.

Even before the latest series of firings, the Games were deeply unpopular in Japan with polls consistently showing a majority of Japanese do not want them to go ahead and do not expect to enjoy them.

It comes against the backdrop of rising Covid cases within the country driven by the more-infectious Delta variant which has seen Tokyo put into a state of emergency that bans large gatherings, meaning most events will take place without crowds.

Even with strict Covid rules in place, some 50,000 people are expected to arrive in Tokyo for the event – another sore point after Japan imposed strict border controls to keep the pandemic under control.

Japan has registered 850,000 Covid cases and 15,000 deaths to-date – relatively low figures for such a populous country.

But there are fears the Olympics could accelerate the country’s already-rising case totals because only 20 per cent of the population are vaccinated.

Already there have been 91 Covid cases linked to the Games – including among athletes, coaches, volunteers and staff.

That total only includes those who returned a positive test after arriving in Japan and does not include those diagnosed in their home countries before travelling.

The latest athlete to be hit is Czech table tennis player Pavel Sirucek who will have to withdraw from the competition to complete mandatory 10-day isolation.

‘Today, we were informed that Pavel Sirucek has tested positive for COVID-19 and is placed in isolation,’ the International Table Tennis Federation said Thursday.

‘Pavel will be marked as Did Not Start in the table tennis competition, in accordance with the Tokyo 2020 Sport-Specific Regulations. We wish him a speedy recovery.’

The 28-year-old is ranked 52nd in the world.

It comes after Dutch skateboarder Candy Jacobs and Chilean taekwondo fighter Fernanda Aguirre withdrew from the Olympics after being diagnosed Wednesday. 

Despite the opening ceremony taking place on Friday several competitions have already got underway, including soccer – with players from several teams taking the knee to protest racial injustice before kickoffs.

But the International Olympic Committee courted controversy after removing footage of them making the protest from highlight reels broadcast around the world – forcing a quick U-turn.

It comes after the IOC watered down a decades-old rule banning political protests from the Games after backlash from athletes.   

The concession under Olympic Charter Rule 50, which has long prohibited any athlete protest inside event venues, was finally allowed this month by the International Olympic Committee.

The IOC has tried to reconcile enforcing the rule while recognizing, and sometimes celebrating, the iconic image of American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising black-gloved fists on the medal podium at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

On Wednesday, the British and Chilean teams kneeled before the opening games and were followed by the United States, Sweden and New Zealand players in later kickoffs. The Australia team posed with a flag of Australia’s indigenous people.

Those images were excluded from the official Tokyo Olympic highlights package provided by the IOC to media including The Associated Press who could not broadcast the games live.

Official Olympic social media channels also did not include pictures of the athlete activism.

‘The IOC is covering the Games on its owned and operated platforms and such moments will be included as well,’ the Olympic body said Thursday in an apparent change of policy.

The IOC said hundreds of millions of viewers could have seen the footage watching networks that have official broadcast rights and ‘can use it as they deem fit.’

The decades-long ban on all demonstrations was eased by the IOC three weeks ago when it was clear some athletes – especially in soccer and track and field – would express opinions on the field in Japan.

Two reviews of Rule 50 in the previous 18 months by the IOC’s own athletes commission had concluded Olympic competitors did not want distractions on their field of play.

The new guidance allows taking a knee or raising a fist in pre-game or pre-race introductions but not on medal ceremony podiums. The IOC will still discipline athletes who protest on the podium.

Sports governing bodies still have a veto, and swimming’s FINA has said its athletes are prohibited on the pool deck from any gesture interpreted as protest.