Full name : Morinari Watanabe
Nationality : Japanese
Year of Birth : 1959
Biography
Elected for an initial four-year term at the Tokyo Congress in October 2016, Morinari Watanabe has become the ninth President of the FIG and the first non-European to hold the post. Before taking office, he had been the Secretary General of the Japanese Gymnastics Association since 2009. He first joined the organisation as managing director in 1996 and was credited for the success of Japanese athletes on the World and Olympic scene after a period of medal-less performances at the 1996 and 2000 Games.
As FIG President, he led this major Olympic sport on the road to the Tokyo 2020 Games (eventually held in 2021) in his own country and brought a new vision for the Federation based on his conviction that the new societal revolution in the 21st century comes from sports – starting with Gymnastics.
Watanabe-san, whose first term was extended until December 2021 due to the one-year postponement of the FIG elections - has been re-elected for a three-year term (2022–2024) by the member Gymnastics federations at the 83rd FIG Congress in Antalya, Turkey, in November 2021.
He has also been a member of the International Olympic Committee since 2018 and a member of the Council of the Association of the Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) since 2019.