Emperor appointed 2020 Tokyo Games honorary president

July 22, 2019

Tokyo--Japan's Emperor Naruhito has accepted the role of honorary president of both the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Imperial Household Agency said Monday.

Emperor Naruhito will hold the post from Wednesday, one year before the opening of the Olympics, to Sept. 6 next year, when the Paralympic Games will end.

Yoshihiro Mori, president of the organizing committee of the Olympics and Paralympics, asked Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for cooperation to nominate Emperor Naruhito in June.

Afterward, Abe made a request to Imperial Household Agency Grand Steward Shinichiro Yamamoto to ask the Emperor to take the role, and he accepted it, according to sources familiar with the situation.

For the 1964 Tokyo Games, Emperor Naruhito's grandfather, Emperor Hirohito, posthumously known as Emperor Showa, acted as honorary president of the Olympic Games, while Emperor Emeritus Akihito, then Crown Prince, was honorary president of Paralympic Games. They declared the opening of the games.

The proposal by Mori, a former prime minister, to unify the roles of honorary presidents of the Olympic and Paralympic Games is aimed at equalizing the two sporting events, the sources said.

Arrangements are expected to be made for Emperor Naruhito to announce the opening of both events.

"We are honored and encouraged" by Emperor Naruhito's agreement to become honorary president of Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Mori said. "This is very meaningful in terms of the values of the events being widely shared and supported," including world peace, friendship, support for the reconstruction of areas hit hard by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and the promotion of the Paralympic movement, he said. Jiji Press