Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Organizing Committee President and former Japan PM Yoshiro Mori "faced some tough questions from the international media at a news conference" in Sochi, according to Jack Gallagher of the JAPAN TIMES. One reporter "wanted to know why the 76-year-old Mori spoke in Japanese instead of English while addressing an audience including reporters from foreign countries." Mori: "You know, in my generation very few people understood foreign languages. ... And if I should make a huge mistake [by speaking English incorrectly] it could lead to problems. And when you come to Japan, can you speak Japanese?” Another journalist "asked about the seemingly advanced age of the Tokyo 2020 organizing team and the lack of females on the committee." Mori: "There will be more people to be assigned to positions in several sections of our committee. Also 25-30 people will be appointed as an executive board member. Therefore I will take a woman’s appointment into full consideration. I would like young people to join us. I would like women to do so as well" (JAPAN TIMES, 2/9). The AFP reported Mori said that "he had been inspired by the opening of Sochi 2014 to make even greater efforts for Japan's Games." Mori said that Tokyo, which won the right to host the 2020 Games at the IOC session in Buenos Aires in September, "would make the Olympics a symbol of Japan's reconstruction after the 2011 earthquake." He said during the Sochi opening ceremony, "I was filled with emotion and thought of welcoming the Olympic flame in Tokyo. I resolved to make even further efforts for the successful hosting of the Games" (AFP, 2/9).
