Roundup: Olympic logo scrapped for plagiarism as Tokyo 2020 Games' fiascos continue

Tokyo Olympic organizers announced Tuesday they had scrapped the logo designed to be used for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games following allegations that its designer had plagiarized the emblem in another embarrassment for the host city and country.

Having flip-flopped over an iconic design to be used for the new national stadium and act as the centerpiece for the Olympics, owing to ballooning costs which irked the public and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's attempt to halt his support rate from plunging below all-time lows here due to his military agenda by dropping the design, the government Tuesday further humiliated itself by ditching the Games' logo too.

Olympic minister Toshiaki Endo confirmed Tuesday, following national and global debate and ridicule on the issue, that the Tokyo 2020 Olympic organizing committee had scrapped the emblem designed by Kenjiro Sano.

The organizing committee having convened an emergency meeting on Tuesday afternoon, which also saw Tokyo 2020 chief Yoshiro Mori, Tokyo Gov. Yoichi Masuzoe and Japanese Olympic Committee President Tsunekazu Takeda in attendance, approved the decision, and told reporters after that the designer had offered to drop the emblem of his own volition.

"The decision to scrap the logo was approved at the meeting after Sano offered to drop the design himself," Endo told a press gathering after the meeting, with Abe stating separately that the committee made the decision based on the best interests of the public.

Sano has faced allegations of plagiarism since the logo was unveiled in July, following a Belgian designer, Olivier Debi, suing the International Olympic Committee due to the unmistakable similarity between Sano's logo and that used for a theater in Belgium, designed by Debi.

Sano, however, who had previously denied the overall allegation, admitted prior to the emergency meeting Tuesday that he had, indeed, without permission, copied online images, is no stranger to such controversies and has faced allegations of plagiarism over some of his past designs.

While the organizing committee here tried to support Sano's innocence last week by showing what was purportedly the original blueprints of the design, those too drew suspicion for being remarkably similar to those of a German designer, typographer, author and teacher, Jan Tschichold, who passed away in 1974, throwing the emblem scandal under an even darker shadow.

Reflecting the sentiment of a nation growing increasingly weary of Olympic-related embarrassments, Masuzoe told the press that he felt like he'd been "betrayed."

The disgraced Sano was unavailable for comment following the committee's decision, and his office said if they had any official comments to make, they would do so henceforth, if necessary.

"I think it's an utter disgrace and has brought the Olympics into disrepute and embarrassed not just the designer, but the committee, the government, the city and the country," Yuki Kamata, 48, himself a graphic designer in Tokyo, told Xinhua.

"On top of the stadium trouble, we're (Japanese people) not really looking forward to the Olympics now and wonder what other scandals lay ahead," Kamata said pessimistically.

But others were more optimistic. "At least they found the logo had been ripped-off earlier rather than later. It would have been a far bigger problem for the committee if the incident had come to light weeks or days before the 2020 Games," Yukari Takeda, 33, owner of select apparel shop in the capital told Xinhua.

"As long as there are no more problems concerning the Olympics and the newly-designed stadium is finished on time and within budget, this emblem fiasco will finally be a distant memory and hopefully the Games in Tokyo in 2020 will be remembered as a success," Takeda, who designs her own fashion line, said. Endi