Shinzo Abe impersonated Mario to promote the Tokyo Olympics


TOKYO –

Despite his notoriety as Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe’s greatest moment came at the closing ceremony of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in front of a crowd of 70,000 at the city’s famed Maracana Stadium.

When a video was shown showing Abe being late for the handover ceremony, the Japanese prime minister suddenly appeared on stage in Rio – to loud applause – dressed as Super Mario, the famous Nintendo video game character.

He pulled his red cap off in front of the crowd and it was clear where the games were going next. The writing on his red cap spelled it out: Tokyo.

Abe died Friday after being shot while delivering a campaign speech in the western Japanese city of Nara.

Always a showman, Abe pushed for the Tokyo Games from the start, then helped keep them on track after they were postponed a year by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was sitting in the front row of a hotel ballroom in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2013 when then-IOC President Jacques Rogge opened an envelope to reveal Tokyo as the host of the 2020 Games. Sitting in the heart of the Japanese delegation, Abe jumped up, raised his arms and waved a flag adorned with the logo of the Tokyo bid committee.

Abe and Japan famously fought for these games under the motto “a safe pair of hands”. This was at a time when Sochi, Russia and Rio de Janeiro were the focus of unrelenting criticism of their preparations; Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics and Rio for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Ironically, allegations of corruption would plague Tokyo’s preparations.

And it was Abe who, in a closing speech to the International Olympic Committee ahead of the Buenos Aires vote, reassured members that the Fukushima nuclear disaster – which occurred in 2011 – was “under control.”

However, this was not the case. This area of ​​northeastern Japan is still struggling to recover a decade after the tragedy. Many in the region believe the Olympics have hampered rather than accelerated the recovery.

Tokyo defeated Istanbul 60-36 in the final round of the 2013 secret ballot. Madrid were eliminated in the first round of voting after an initial draw against Istanbul.

And it was Abe and IOC President Thomas Bach who had the final say in postponing the Games in March 2020 amid rising COVID-19 deaths. Bach said in a statement on Friday that the postponed games went on — only because of Abe.

“Only his vision, determination and reliability allowed us to make the unprecedented decision to postpone the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games,” said Bach. He said that without Abe, “these Olympics would never have happened.”

He called Abe “a man with a vision, full of determination and boundless energy to achieve his vision. What I appreciated most about him was that he was a man of his word.”

Bach said the Olympic flag at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, will fly at half-staff for three days.

Abe was likely the #1 booster at the Tokyo 2020 Games, which he hoped would serve as a reminder that despite the rise of China, Japan was still a power in Asia. But he resigned from his post in late August 2020 – just under 11 months before the delayed games were supposed to open – claiming he was struggling with health.

“I thought it was a bit heartbreaking for him not to be prime minister at the time of the Olympics,” said David Leheny, a political scientist at Japan’s Waseda University, in an interview with The Associated Press. “He had put so much work into it and I think for him it was emblematic of Japan re-emerging as a leader on the global stage.”

Abe was replaced by Yoshihide Suga, who chaired the Olympics but resigned just weeks after it ended. Suga has been criticized for its handling of the pandemic.

“Given the importance of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics for many people – in heralding the rise of Japan after World War II – I think it should be the same for Abe that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be held,” Leheny added. “And he certainly wasn’t shy about putting himself at the center of the process.”