Tokyo Governor - from sailor to Olympic salesman

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2009

PARIS (AFP) — Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has been many things in his life from an award-winning novelist to a sailor, a sometimes controversial member of the Diet and now the president of the bid to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to the Japanese capital.

The 76-year-old - whose late brother Yujiro was one of Japan's leading screen idols - won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for the best young author for his novel Season of the Sun before he had even graduated from university in 1956.

However, he is adamant where that would lie in his list of achievements should Tokyo beat their three rivals - Chicago, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro - in the vote by International Olympic Committee (IOC) members in Copenhagen on October 2.

"I will be pleased 1,000 times more," said...