It turned out that the Japanese version of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) group company "Olympic Channel" published an article that violated the Olympic Charter. (Photo quoted from Yahoo’s image)

The Olympic Channel is a company that distributes Olympic-related articles and videos on the Internet. It is composed of a joint-stock company whose parent company is the IOC and a limited liability company. The president of the stock company is Chairman Tohomas Bach, and the president of the limited liability company is Juan Antonio Samaranti Salisachs, the son of the late Samaranti.

The article in question was titled "Olympic Medal Ranking: Which Country Has the Most Medals?" and was posted on its website in January 2020 by the Olympic Channel editorial department.

Forbidden "medal number ranking"

"Japan has won the 11th most medals in the world, of which 142 are gold medals, 135 are silver medals, and 162 are bronze medals." (As per the original text)

"At the last Rio de Janeiro Olympics, Japan has got 41 medals in one tournament, which is the largest number."

"The country that got the most medals is the United States, with a total of 2,522 medals, more than 1,000 behind second place."

Along with these pranks, the breakdown of the number of gold, silver and bronze medals in the top 20 countries that won medals in the summer and winter competitions is shown.

However, Article 57 of the Charter stipulates that "The IOC and the OCOG shall not draw up any global ranking per country. " The Olympics are just a "Sports Festival", and in order to secure the premise that it is not a rivalry between nations, the IOC and OCOG are restricted in the charter, It's nothing but the article in question is "World Ranking By Country".

Naofumi Masumoto, Vice Chairman of the Japan Olympic Academy and a visiting professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University and Musashino University, pointed out that the IOC's violation of the Charter.

"The Olympic Channel is the official channel (public relations tool) of the IOC, so it is governed by the IOC's Olympic Charter. As you pointed out,  do not count or rank medals that violate the Articles the 57th."

Moreover, the article states that the number of Japanese medals ranked 11th in the summer tournament is "142 gold medals, 136 silver medals, 163 bronze medals, 441 medals in total", which does not match the number of medals in the preamble. 

Articles are suddenly deleted when inquired

Since the beginning of March this year, I have been asking the IOC for their views by email. However, no answers by the deadline in spite of the two inquiries.

However, in late March, when I contacted the Olympic Channel in addition to the IOC, the article suddenly disappeared from the site. After that, when I searched the site with the same title, the article "Number of medals won for the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics | Japanese athletes won 441 medals in the summer and 58 medals in the winter" was shown. Introducing the top 20 countries with the highest number of medals, and using the same photo at the top of the page, but the numbering of the rankings next to the country name has disappeared.

Yoshiro Mori, the former chairman of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games Organizing Committee, was forced to resign because his disdain for women violated the prohibition of discrimination stipulated in the Charter. Chairman Bach also serves as the president of the Olympic Channel, revealing the absence of corporate governance of the IOC itself.

The IOC commented in an email on March 29, "We apologize for the delay in responding. Thank you for letting us know about this. The article has been corrected appropriately." However, they did not mention the responsibilities of the IOC, Bach, and the Japanese editor.

The new coronavirus pandemic has revealed to the world that the Olympic Games, which are called "Festivals of Peace" and "Festivals of Sports," are nothing more than the IOC's entertainment. The IOC's own violation of the Olympic Charter was part of that.

Itsuro Goto (Journalist)

This article "The Tokyo Olympics were eaten by the Bach IOC chairman" published in the May issue of  "Bungei Shunju" and "Bungei Shunju digital" is detailed about the actual situation of the double standard of IOC as "the world's largest sports operator".