The 48-year-old former speed skater had also held the role at Vancouver 2010, when Japan had finished 20th in the medals table with three silver and two bronze. 

The appointment extends the remarkable Olympic record of Hashimoto, who represented Japan in four consecutive Winter Olympics, starting in 1984 in Sarajevo, winning a bronze in the 1500 metres speed skating at Albertville in 1992, and three consecutive Summer Games, as a cyclist, starting in 1988 in Seoul.

Seiko Hashimoto represented Japan as a speed skater in four consecutive Winter Olympics and as a cyclist in three Summer Games

Her father gave her the name Seiko, after the Olympic Flame when she was born in 1964, the year Tokyo held the Olympics.

In June, Hashimoto became the first women in charge of athlete development for the Japanese Olympic Committee.

She is the President of both the Japan Cycling Federation and the Japan Skating Federation, as well as a member of the Diet's Upper House.

Hashimoto is hoping that the decision earlier this month to award Tokyo the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics will help inspire the team at Sochi, where around 100 Japanese competitors are expected to take part. 

"Now that Tokyo has been chosen to host the 2020 Olympics, I want to build momentum in the Winter Games as well," she said.

"It is natural that we aspire to do as well as we ever have in the past."

Japan's best-ever performance at a Winter Olympics was at Nagano in 1998 when they won 10 medals, seven gold.

It was the only occasion in which they won more than one gold medal at a Winter Games.

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