Olympics opening ceremony director sacked for Holocaust joke

The show director of the Olympics opening ceremony has been dismissed, one day before the event is due to be held.

Footage of Kentaro Kobayashi from the 1990s recently emerged in which he appears to be making jokes about the Holocaust.

Japan's Olympic chief Seiko Hashimoto said the video ridiculed "painful facts of history".

The dismissal is the latest in a string of scandals to hit the Games.

Tokyo 2020 - postponed last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic that has constantly threatened to derail the event - has seen three men forced to step down since the start of 2021.

Earlier this week, a composer quit the team creating the ceremony after it emerged he had bullied classmates with disabilities at school

In March, Olympics' creative chief Hiroshi Sasaki quit after suggesting that plus-size comedian Naomi Watanabe could appear as an "Olympig". He later apologised

And in February, Yoshiro Mori was forced to step down as the head of the organising committee after he made remarks about women that were criticised as "inappropriate". Mr Mori was quoted as saying women talked too much and that meetings with many female board directors would "take a lot of time"

This latest scandal has seen former comedian Mr Kobayashi strongly criticised for a sketch he performed 23 years ago, in which he and another comedian pretend to be children's entertainers.

In the sketch Mr Kobayashi turns to his colleague, referring to some paper dolls, saying they are "the ones from that time you said 'let's play the Holocaust'", according to AFP news agency.