User:Alexis Lhotka/Seiko Hashimoto

Article Draft
Notes regarding the draft: We separated "Early life and athletic career" into "Early life" and "Athletic Career." We added sections called "Family life" and "Olympic leadership" to distinguish those areas from her "Political career" section. Our images as well as some other content has already been added to the live article (including the reformatting of the headings).

Lead
(Added live) making her a seven time Olympian

On top of her Olympic career, she is the mother of six children while working in politics and other leadership positions.

Father's influence
Her father's name is Zenkichi Hashimoto (Japanese: 橋本善吉, Hepburn: Hashimoto Zenkichi, death October 2020 at the age of 96). Seiko Hashimoto, who was born five days before the Olympic opening ceremony, was named Seiko by him, because he was deeply impressed by the Olympic torch. He wished her to be an Olympian. She grew up hearing from him that she was born to participate in the Olympics.

Her father was a strict person in everything on sports and housework, and he taught her skating and horseback riding. Under his influence, she began speed skating at the age of three and became the best speed skater in Japan in her second year of high school.

She is the youngest of four siblings, and her siblings are much older than her. There is a pond on the ranch of her parents' house, which freezes in the winter to make skating rink for her and her siblings to skate on. She skated on that frozen farm pond with their friends from elementary school. She was active as a top female skater for a long time amongst her peers. Her first skating coach was Mr. Akira Otani, who worked at the Hayakita Town Office and volunteered to teach children living in the neighborhood to skate. Akira Otani instructed her on skating from kindergarten to her first year of junior high school.

Athletic career
Seiko Hashimoto took part in a total of seven Olympics, four in winter skating and three in summer cycling for 12 years from 19 to 31 years old; 1984 winter Sarajevo, 1988 winter Calgary/summer Seoul, 1992 winter Albertville/summer Barcelona, 1994 winter Lillehammer, 1996 summer Atlanta. She competed in the women's 1500m speed skating and won a bronze medal, which was the first Japanese woman to win a bronze medal at the Winter Olympics. She also joined World Sprint Speed Skating Championships, World All-round Championship, Asian Winter Games, Asian Games, and Asian Championship and won 6 Gold Medals, 2 Silver Medals, and four Bronze Medals at total.

Family life
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Seiko married a widowed officer in the Diet of Japan in 1998, who brought three children into the marriage She was the first lawmaker in Japan to give birth to her a child while in office, and later had 2 more children, becoming the mother of 6. Seiko Hashimoto gave birth to her three biological children after fertility treatments, and Seiko noted that (and advocated for) fertility treatment facilities gradually increasing access for fertility treatments compared to when she conceived her first biological daughter in 2000. Seiko Hashimoto kept her maiden name when she entered the House of Councilors, and her Husband changed his family name to Hashimoto as well, because in Japan, married couples must have the same last name.

Political career
Seiko deals with health issues in politics and a decline in birth rate, and she is the Minister in Charge of Women’s Empowerment. She hopes that young women participate in politics and that their voices should be directly reflected in it. As of 2020, the National Diet of Japan is comprised of 10.2% women.

Seiko had to leave her position as on of 2 women on Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's cabinet to accept her role in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics committee. She competed in the Olympics while serving as a lawmaker in 1996.

Olympic leadership
In August 2014, Seiko Hashimoto was featured in magazines she was hugging and kissing several times with Daisuke Takahashi at a party held after the Winter Olympics closed in Sochi. Several magazines said that she hugged and kissed him due to their unequal power dynamics, because she was on the Olympic committee, a politician, and a former Olympian herself. In contrast, Takahashi, known as the prince on ice in Japan, objected to the magazine's article and did not think that her behaviors are connected to sexual or power harassment.

In February 2022, she received the 2021 IOC Women and Sport Awards, which was presented to individuals or a group who has contributed to give opportunity, recognition, and empowerment foe women in sports. She was evaluated to promote gender equality, increasing the ratio of the female directors by roughly 40% in the Olympic Organizing Committee (OOC).

(Added live) Mori claims to have received criticism from his wife, daughter, and granddaughter for his statements. In response to his comments, many women lawmakers, as well as some men, wore white as a means protesting to express their disagreement with his comments. (Already cited)

A few of Seiko Hashimoto's colleagues in the Diet of Japan made a petition for Mori's resignation.

A nonpartisan sports all-party parliamentary group decided to launch an all-party parliamentary federation to invite the 2030 Sapporo Winter Olympics/ Paralympics. Seiko Hashimoto, The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games serves as chairman again.