Japan's Watanabe Stresses Significance of His IOC Presidency Bid

Tokyo, March 24 (Jiji Press)--Morinari Watanabe said Monday his bid for the president of the International Olympic Committee was meaningful albeit unsuccessful.

"There was a world that I was able to see because I ran," Watanabe, 66, head of the International Gymnastics Federation, told a press conference in Tokyo. "I believe running for the IOC presidency means a lot to the Japanese."

Watanabe, who became the first Japanese to seek the top IOC post, earned only four of the 97 valid votes in the election last week after serving as a member of the committee for seven years and proposing to hold the Summer Olympics simultaneously on five continents.

The election was won by Zimbabwe's Kirsty Coventry, who will be the first female IOC chief.

"She will surely open a new era," Watanabe said.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]