Toyota’s president has stepped down from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizing committee, amid reports that costs for the event have ballooned to about six times original estimates.
Akio Toyoda late on Monday said that he would quit as vice president of the main organizing group, opting instead to support the Games as head of the Olympic lobbying group of the Japan Business Federation, commonly known as Keidanren.
Toyota, the world’s biggest automaker, signed a nearly US$1 billion global Olympic sponsorship deal this year.
“I feel it is vitally important that the organizing committee and Japan’s business community further strengthen their collaborations prior to the Rio 2016 Games,” Toyoda said in a statement.
“I have therefore decided to reorganize my roles and further intensify my efforts to encourage the business community to actively support the delivery of the 2020 Games,” he added.
Panasonic president Kazuhiro Tsuga is to move into Toyoda’s position, local media said.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
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