TOKYO, August 12. /TASS/. Miu Goto, a pitcher for the 2020 Japanese national Olympic winning team in women’s softball, will have her gold medal replaced after Takashi Kawamura, the mayor of Nagoya, tried to take a symbolic bite of it in violation of anti-COVID-19 measures, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Thursday.
According to the news agency, last week Goto paid a visit to the City Hall of her hometown Nagoya and the 72-year-old mayor of the central Japan metropolis met with her "and while posing for photos with her removed his mask and put her medal between his teeth."
Kyodo also reported that Kawamura made inappropriate remarks in regard to the 20-year-old Olympics softball champion.
"He also asked Goto, who plays for the locally-based Toyota Red Terriers, if she was ‘prohibited from having romantic relationships’," according to the Japanese news agency.
Following that meeting last week between Kawamura and Goto, over 7,000 complaints were lodged with the administration of Nagoya accusing the mayor of breaching the protocol of anti-COVID-19 measures and sexual harassment.
Mayor Kawamura has extended his apologies over the incident and, speaking to President of the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) Yamashita Yasuhiro, he expressed his readiness to cover the cost of the new gold medal for Goto at his own expense.
However, Kyodo news agency reports that a new gold medal for the Japanese Olympic softball champion will be coined at the expense of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Japan’s capital of Tokyo were held this year between July 23 and August 8. In March 2020, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to postpone the 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Japan for one year due to the spread of COVID-19.
As of today, Japan is ranked 32nd globally in terms of reported COVID-19 cases, which currently stand at over 1,069,550. A total of over 15,330 people have died of the novel coronavirus infection there, while more than 920,860 have recovered from the illness.
The national team of hosts Japan finished the 2020 Summer Games in the 3rd place of the overall medals standings, having won 27 gold, 14 silver and 17 bronze medals, and registered the best medals result of the national Japanese team at all Olympics.