INTERVIEW: IOC Pres. Candidate Watanabe Vows to Update Olympics

Tokyo, Sept. 28 (Jiji Press)--Japan's Morinari Watanabe, running in a crowded International Olympic Committee presidential race to succeed incumbent Thomas Bach, has underlined the need to update the Olympics as new types of sports emerge.

"The Olympics needs to be changed to go with the times," Watanabe said in a recent interview with Jiji Press, setting out what he wants to do if elected.

"It's necessary to create a new Olympics" that integrates traditional sports with urban sports and emerging e-sports, said Watanabe, president of the International Gymnastics Federation, or FIG, and an IOC member.

The IOC should "obtain more opinions from people in the field," he proposed, saying that under the IOC's current decision-making system, all decisions are made by the president and then approved by the executive board and at IOC sessions.

"There are 206 domestic Olympic committees in the world," he noted.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]