OSAKA -- Yushiro Yagi, president of the Japanese Olympic Committee, died Sunday evening after collapsing in a sauna at an Osaka hotel, hotel officials said Monday. He was 72.

Yagi, who checked in at the ANA Hotel Osaka in the city's Kita Ward at around 5:40 p.m. Sunday, entered the sauna about one hour later. Hotel officials found him lying in the sauna at around 8:10 p.m. He was pronounced dead at a city hospital at 9:57 p.m.

JOC officials said the cause of death was heart failure. Hotel officials said Yagi's heart had stopped when he arrived at the hospital.

Yagi was to attend a meeting Monday on disbanding the Osaka bid committee for the 2008 Olympics, following the International Olympic Committee's decision in July to hold the Games in Beijing.

He was hospitalized in Osaka in May following a reception held prior to the opening of the East Asian Games.

He was elected to a second two-year term as JOC president in March after its age amendment was altered.

He became a JOC executive in April 1993 and secretary general of the committee two years later.

Yagi, who was from Hokkaido, belonged to a skiing club at Nihon University and became a coach at the club in 1955. He led the university's skiing team to a number of victories.

In 1960, Yagi became an executive of the Ski Association of Japan and later became its vice president and secretary general.

He contributed to the development of skiing in Japan by serving as the coach of a biathlon team in the 1972 Sapporo Winter Olympics and a team of skiers in the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.

Yagi served as chief of the Japanese teams at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics and last year's Games in Sydney.

In 1957, he launched a building maintenance company, Tokyo Biso Kogyo Corp., and served as its chairman until his death.