unhygienic and impolite toward the athlete

August 12, 2021 7:05 PM

The mayor of Nagoya has apologized for biting softball player Miu Goto's Olympic gold medal; she will get a new one.
posted by brainwane (28 comments total)

I just can’t imagine what was going through his head when he did this! That photo though. I can imagine what’s going through her head…
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:27 PM on August 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

The social media users are right!
posted by rhizome at 8:36 PM on August 12, 2021

I've never gotten why anyone "eats" a medal in the first place?!
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:45 PM on August 12, 2021 [3 favorites]

To prove that it's gold, which would work much better if they were, in fact, solid gold.

But biting into gold to test softness is a common trope.

or vice versa, apparently, after reading the explanation on TVTropes.
posted by sagc at 8:50 PM on August 12, 2021 [13 favorites]

I've never gotten why anyone "eats" a medal in the first place?!

Following ancient Greek tradition, 1 of every 10 medals is actually made of chocolate.
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:18 PM on August 12, 2021 [33 favorites]

She could probably sell the bitten medal for a lot more than she'd get for the replacement they're giving her -- especially if there are teeth marks!
posted by jamjam at 9:35 PM on August 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

"Gold!"

-Yukon Cornelius
posted by clavdivs at 9:55 PM on August 12, 2021 [8 favorites]

It's more than just the biting of the medal (though that was ridiculous enough), the fucker, I mean, mayor was asking her if she was dating anyone or not, and other sorts of lechery/harassment that he then tried to play off as making small talk. And that's before we even get into the idiocy of pulling down your mask and putting someone else's property in your mouth during a pandemic. Meanwhile, he's the hot topic, with press conferences and reporters interviewing him in the halls being shown on the news for the last couple of weeks. He's a pretty solid example of what makes for 'leadership' here, unfortunately.

I feel for Goto in this. She has competed for, and won the highest possible award in her sport, for which she has sacrificed and worked her whole life to reach. Her medal, even the replacement, are forever going to be linked to this rotten excuse for a human being.

And then, there's the sickening news from last week of a guy who decided to go on a stabbing spree on a crowded train. His target was any woman that looked happy, because, as the news has focused on endlessly, "he had bad luck in relationships" as the most newsworthy thing.

I swear to god, the stabbings are on a line, and on that same line is the mayor of Nagoya thinking it was okay to do this, and the comments by the ex-head of the Japan Olympic Committee (and former Prime Minister) Mori claiming that he didn't want too many women in meetings because "they talk to much." All of it is part of the same problem, and all of it contributes to keeping it going.
posted by Ghidorah at 9:59 PM on August 12, 2021 [71 favorites]

I feel for Goto in this. She has competed for, and won the highest possible award in her sport, for which she has sacrificed and worked her whole life to reach. Her medal, even the replacement, are forever going to be linked to this rotten excuse for a human being.

Well, let's not do that, then. Anyone have any good videos of Goto doing softball things?
posted by aniola at 10:16 PM on August 12, 2021 [6 favorites]

Anyone have any good videos of Goto doing softball things?

She doesn't seem to have gotten a ton of Olympic airtime, as I think she was a reliever, but she features prominently in coverage of the 2019 U-19 Women’s Softball World Cup final between Japan and the USA. The game is described as "an astounding pitching duel between [Japanese lefty Miu] Goto and [US right-hander Megan] Faraimo". It looks like it was a hell of a game.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:55 PM on August 12, 2021 [6 favorites]

Hmm, an old man disrespecting a young woman by treating her property as his own, you say? Astonishing!
posted by medusa at 3:33 AM on August 13, 2021 [3 favorites]

"Gold!"

-Yukon Cornelius

I read that in the original script for that Rudolph TV special, Cornelius was supposed to be mining for peppermint, which is why he licked the pick axe. They cut that sub plot at some point but a bunch of the animation was already done, so they left the licking parts in and just wrote it off as a weird flex. I'm too lazy to dig up (heh) a link right now.
posted by SoberHighland at 4:59 AM on August 13, 2021 [8 favorites]

She could probably sell the bitten medal for a lot more than she'd get for the replacement they're giving her -- especially if there are teeth marks!

I got a LeBaron convertible right here. It's got a few more miles on it, but the previous owner was John Voight Miu Goto.
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:17 AM on August 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

Well if there wasn’t chocolate inside, why was it wrapped in foil?
posted by Servo5678 at 9:32 AM on August 13, 2021

I think it is Chanukah gelt.
posted by AugustWest at 10:08 AM on August 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

Thanks, Kadin2048!
posted by aniola at 10:20 AM on August 13, 2021

SoberHighland: "I read that in the original script for that Rudolph TV special, Cornelius was supposed to be mining for peppermint, which is why he licked the pick axe. "

Christmas Specials wiki tells me that scene was restored in the special in 1998. It's there in the DVD version we play for our kid anyway.

Now, that being settled, let's get back to the main FPP thread for more on why biting someone else's gold medal makes you an asshole!
posted by caution live frogs at 10:30 AM on August 13, 2021

I get that it was disrespectful and gross and I want to punch him in the face - but does the medal really need to be replaced? Was it damaged?
posted by double bubble at 11:11 AM on August 13, 2021 [2 favorites]

Here is Miu Goto's Olympic profile. She likes eating in restaurants and has been practicing softball since 4th grade, after being inspired by the 2008 Olympics. She likes eating at restaurants (as of April 2019). She is a softball pitcher and an office worker. Her hero is the Japanese baseball player Kyota Fujiwara. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
posted by aniola at 12:03 PM on August 13, 2021 [4 favorites]

She has already achieved her ambition of 2020 Olympic gold that she probably had for over half her life. What will she do next?
posted by aniola at 12:06 PM on August 13, 2021

double bubble: "I get that it was disrespectful and gross and I want to punch him in the face - but does the medal really need to be replaced? Was it damaged?"

It's a symbol. Its symbolic value was tarnished.
posted by signal at 12:50 PM on August 13, 2021 [4 favorites]

in an alternate reality the mayor is bumblingly harmless.. means well but Mr. Beans it once in a while.. so the bitten medal is no big deal.

let's remember we live in this reality, where the gesture has a big fucking context to it.. both in terms of the mayor's own actions (other than biting the damn medal) and how a lot of men in authority positions tend to view women (in Japan and elsewhere)

if it's my medal, I absolutely don't care if there's any lasting impression on the medal. replace my fucking medal, I don't even want to imagine that asshole's taint. I guess you either get that or not, I suppose it's a very personal reaction. you really think finding a replacement medal is such a big deal for the Cornershop Global Olympics Committee?
posted by elkevelvet at 1:49 PM on August 13, 2021 [3 favorites]

I didn’t indicate that I think it’s a big deal to replace it, it just feels like a bit of an overreaction to me. I’d like to think I’d just tell the guy off and apply a hefty dose of sanitizer - but maybe not.
posted by double bubble at 2:40 PM on August 13, 2021

But I really was curious if there was actual damage.
posted by double bubble at 2:41 PM on August 13, 2021

Me too! But then I decided it was ok for that to stay a mystery, and that I didn't need to actually know because it was besides the point, and that my time would be better spent learning about Miu Koto or moving on.
posted by aniola at 3:03 PM on August 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

double bubble, again, given the pandemic, his actions were inexcusable. Given basic politeness and decency, his actions were reprehensible. He didn’t ask, and he’d already violated boundaries (asking her if she had a boyfriend, and other remarks that men in power make to young women). His actions were the action of a man who believes he can do whatever he wants and his response to criticism over it showed that he also was surprised that he was wrong.

It’s not an overreaction, it’s a course correction. It’s a pushback against him, but hopefully it also serves as a lasting warning against similar behavior here.

I was (and still am) very much against holding the Olympics here, but I also recognize that without the added international scrutiny, it’s highly likely that Mori’s sexist comments would have just been laughed off, and he would have remained in charge. Sasaki’s comments that a famous comedian, who is overweight, be dressed up as a pig and be the “Olympig” in the opening ceremony? They would have been ignored. Maybe it’s just the Olympics, maybe it’s just the added scrutiny (and he’ll, it honestly probably is), but this past year has seen powerful men called to account for their shitty behavior. The removal of the composer for the opening ceremony is something that would never have happened ten years ago (which is roughly when he bragged in an interview about tormenting disabled classmates.

It’s not an overreaction. It’s a long overdue notice to men in Japan that women are tired of their bullshit.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:04 PM on August 13, 2021 [9 favorites]

Mod note: A few comments removed. If you want to talk about how to navigate points of disagreement on the site, that's a good use for MetaTalk; reacting disingenuously or over the top to make a rhetorical point is not good participation. The Guidelines are clear: say what you genuinely mean. Don't expect other people to read between the lines on an intentional misstatement of your position.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:55 PM on August 13, 2021

The way it had been presented it sounded like a big, weird, overreaction to a big, weird, action. The coverage I saw here said nothing of the mayor creeping on her. Just that he bit her medal, without reason or context. Biting on a gold coin is sort of a thing to do in jest, I guess, but I've never actually seen it done outside old movies and cartoons. And I thought maybe it was in reference to that. The pandemic angle is still weird. I mean, disinfection is a thing. It's not like he made it radioactive for a millennia. Not to say that she should be denied a new medal. Just that the story was little more than a blurb here that made little sense at all.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:31 PM on August 13, 2021