(ATR) John Coates says he expects Tokyo’s Kasumigaseki Golf Club to change its gender policy by the end of June.
"My understanding is as recent as this week there have been more discussions with the club, that it's heading in the right direction for them to have a non-discriminatory membership," IOC vice president Coates said while in Japan for the Tokyo 2020 project review.
The private golf club in Tokyo currently does not offer full membership to women, a provision which excludes women from playing the course on Sundays. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike brought attention to the matter when she called for a change in the golf club’s gender policies.
Coates says it is possible the IOC could push a move to another venue but believes Kasumigaseki will resolve these issues.
"We will only go to a club that has non-discrimination," Coates emphasized.
The IOC’s second-in-command is reiterating the strong stance he conveyed to Around the Rings while in Sapporo, Japan for the Asian Winter Games. Coates told ATR the course manager always understood the club would have to become gender equal.
"This was the number one choice," Coates said. "They are not building a new course. This was the best. The club has already spent a fair bit of money improving the course in readiness.
"They tell me it’s heading in the right direction but our position is pretty firm. If it’s not [changed], we have to go somewhere else."
Coates said the end of June is not a firm deadline but added "at some point there has to be a cut-off".
Written by Kevin Nutley
Forgeneral comments or questions, click here.
25 Years at #1: Your best source of news about theOlympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribersonly.
Recent Articles
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
