Mayor's Medal Bite Does Not Land Well
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Olympic athletes have a little tradition of biting their medals.
A Japanese mayor tried to join in on the fun, and the joke did not land.
The trouble for Mayor Takashi Kawamura of Nagoya began Wednesday when he publicly congratulated a local medalist, softball player Miu Goto, reports Reuters.
After Goto slipped her medal around the mayor's neck, he promptly took off his mask and bit it. Then came a firestorm of online criticism, especially from Japanese Olympians (though not Goto herself).
"He bites the medal?" said fencer Yuki Ota. "It's inconceivable to me."
Added judo medalist Naohisa Takato: "I would have cried," per NBC News.
Even Toyota, a sponsor of the Games, piled on, citing the spread of COVID cases.
"It is unfortunate that he was unable to feel admiration and respect for the athlete," said a company statement. "And it is extremely regrettable that he was unable to give consideration to infection prevention."
Amid the backlash, the mayor offered a mea culpa.
"I saw the gold medal that I had admired and acted on impulse," he said, as quoted by Kyodo News. "I made the symbol of years and years of hard work dirty. I apologize from the bottom of my heart."
Prior to all this, the organizers of the Tokyo Games had put out a jokey tweet acknowledging the tradition and pointing out that "medals are not edible."
QUESTIONS:
1) What joke did Mayor Takashi Kawamura make on one Olympic medal?
2) How come many found his action very upsetting?
3) After the backlash, what did the mayor have to say about it?
4) How important is it for any government official to be extra conscientious of their actions in relation to the potential spread of COVID-19?
5) Have you ever heard of any South Korean politicians who violated the social distancing mandate themselves? How problematic can that be?
VOCABULARY:
mea culpa - an acknowledgment of a personal error or fault
