Ousted Olympic Boss did not want Osaka to light the Olympic flame

Former Olympic Games Boss Yoshiro Mori was the head of the Olympic Games until early in 2021 when he was forced to resign from his position due to a controversy. Now many months after that, and after the Olympic Games are slowly coming to an end more information about the background of the Games is emerging.

One of those is the fact that Naomi Osaka was not supposed to light the Olympic games as she did. According to sources close to the matter, Mori (who was still in charge at the time) did not want Osaka to light the fire. He preferred another athlete because he deemed him 'pure Japanese'.

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Osaka was only approached by the Committee to do light the fire after Mori resigned as was replaced by a woman. The significance of that is because Mori resigned after an offensive comment towards women. He claimed women talk 'too much' and wanted less of them on the Games board.

Osaka ultimately ended up getting the honour which made her the face of the Games. The pictures went around the world and were positively received.