Calacus Weekly Hit & Miss – Tom Daley & Kentaro Kobayashi
Every Monday we look at the best and worst communicators in the sports world from the previous week.
HIT – TOM DALEY
Tom Daley is finally an Olympic champion.
After 13 years of trying, Daley, alongside diving partner Matty Lee, won Team GB’s second gold medal of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games with victory in the men’s synchronised 10 metres platform.
"I still can't honestly believe what is happening.” Daley said. “That moment, being about to be announced as Olympic champions, I was gone. I was blubbering. To finally have this around my neck, I've been diving over 20 years.
"Lots of people would have counted me out but I'm in the best shape and with the support with Matty, we've had that unstoppable mentality this year and that's the first time I've ever been able to think like that.”
After winning Olympic gold medal at the fourth attempt, Daley must feel like an enormous weight has been lifted from his shoulders.
Ever since he burst onto the international stage at the Beijing Games in 2008, aged just 14, he has been in ever-present in the British media, not least as a result of the huge expectations he has faced from such a young age, but also because of his private life.
From the media attention about moving schools after being bullied in the wake of his initial diving success, to losing his dad Robert, who died following a battle with brain cancer, Daley has faced so many challenges on his long journey to Olympic glory.
The public eye has also constantly scrutinised his sexuality. Speaking on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 2018, Daley admitted that he often felt inferior to everyone because of his uncertainty regarding his sexuality.
But since coming out as gay in 2013, Daley has been a real inspiration and role model for so many young, gay people.
More than 160 members of the LGBTQ community ae expected to participate in the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games, according to the sports news website Outsports and after winning gold, Daley said: “I came out in 2013 and when I was younger I always felt like the one that was alone and different and didn’t fit. There was something about me that was never going to be as good as what society wanted me to be.
“I hope that any young LGBT person out there can see that no matter how alone you feel right now, you are not alone and that you can achieve anything. There is a whole lot of your chosen family out here ready to support you. I feel incredible proud to say that I am a gay man and also an Olympic champion.”
Daley’s powerful words were made as he stood between athletes from China and Russia — two nations where same-sex marriage is not legal.
He added: "I feel very empowered by that because when I was younger I felt I was never going to achieve anything because of who I was."
Olympic gold arrives in Daley’s first Games since become a father to son Robbie - who is named after his late father.
“Being a father was a massive turning point in my career as an athlete,” Daley admitted. “I realised whether I did really well or terribly I can go home to a husband and son who love me regardless.
“Feeling that and knowing that love is unconditional, I can take that pressure off myself, enjoy it and say I'm doing it because I love to do it.”
Speaking about his husband and his child in front of the world media, next to athletes from China, a country where neither would be permitted for a gay man, Daley continues to act as a key spokesperson for the LGBTQ+ community and for LGBTQ+ rights.
His words have been widely praised by sporting stars, with Gary Lineker tweeting: “Absolute inspiration to so many. Well said and well played @TomDaley1994”.
Two-time Olympic champion rower James Cracknell also praised Daley on Twitter, saying: “So pleased for @tomdaley pioneered for his sport, was overwhelminghly supportive when other divers won GB’s first diving gold in 2016. But backed himself to perform in @tokyo2020 enjoy it and well done @mattydiver”.
Daley has overcome so many obstacles in his journey to achieving Olympic success, which highlight just how mentally strong and how much of role model he is.
Still just 27, he has played a vital role in transforming the sport of diving in the UK over the years and continues to inspire the next generation of athletes.
Tom Daley has captured the hearts of a nation and is a deserved Olympic hero.
MISS – KENTARO KOBAYASHI
The Olympic Games may be somewhat different this year, given the delays and lack of crowds and visitors caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the Games have always stood for inclusion, friendship and respect for others.
So it was no surprise that the show director of the Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony was dismissed a day before the event was held after offensive comments were discovered from the 1990s.
Footage emerged of Kentaro Kobayashi, a former member of a popular comedy duo Rahmens , in which he appeared to make jokes about the Holocaust and was quoted saying “Let’s play massacre the Jews.”
Given the terrible loss of life to military and civilians, including a quarter of a million people killed by the nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Kobayashi’s comments could not have been less appropriate.
Kobayashi at least issued a statement responding to his dismissal and said: “It should never be the job of an entertainer to make people feel uncomfortable.
“I understand that my choice of words at the time was wrong, and I regret it. I would like to apologise for making people feel uncomfortable. I am very sorry.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned the anti-Semitic ‘jokes’ with Global Social Action Director, Rabbi Abraham Cooper saying: “Any person, no matter how creative, does not have the right to mock the victims of the Nazi genocide.
“The Nazi regime also gassed Germans with disabilities. Any association of this person to the Tokyo Olympics would insult the memory of six million Jews and make a cruel mockery of the Paralympics.”
Kobayashi’s departure is the fourth senior Tokyo 2020 executive to depart ahead of the Games.
Earlier last week, one of the event’s composers, Keigo Oyamada, resigned after old magazine interviews resurfaced in which he joked about bullying other children at school, including classmates with intellectual disabilities.
In March, creative chief Hiroshi Sasaki quit after suggesting that plus-size comedian Naomi Watanabe could appear as an ‘Olympig’ while in February, Yoshiro Mori was forced to resign as the head of the organising committee after he made remarks that women talked too much and that meetings with female board directors would “take a lot of time.”
Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee President Seiko Hashimoto said of Kobayashi’s dismissal: “We found out that Mr. Kobayashi, in his own performance, has used a phrase ridiculing a historical tragedy.
“We deeply apologise for causing such a development the day before the opening ceremony and for causing troubles and concerns to many involved parties as well as the people in Tokyo and the rest of the country.”
Another embarrassing scandal in Japan revolving around the Olympic Games can be an opportunity, according to Sayuri Shirai, a professor of economics at Japan's Keio University.
“Discrimination was never a major issue, so many people are careless. A lot of foreign media pay so much attention (to the Olympic Games), so every negative issue is under the spotlight...
“People are starting to be more sensitive about discriminatory expression," she said, adding that the scandals was a “good opportunity for Japan” to think more about discrimination and diversity.