By David Owen
March 11 – A 67-year-old German lawyer called Thomas Bach was re-elected as International Olympic Committee (IOC) president on the first day of a videoconferenced IOC session on Wednesday (March 10).
Bach, who won a fencing gold medal at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, was unopposed. He was backed by 93 of the 94 valid votes cast by his fellow IOC members, with one unidentified voter opposed. There were in addition four abstentions.
The German will now serve a further four years until 2025. He was originally elected in Buenos Aires in 2013.
Having taken over from a Belgian surgeon called Jacques Rogge towards the end of sport’s media-fuelled boom era, Bach’s seven-and-a-half years at the helm to date have been more difficult than originally expected. Much of the period has been overshadowed by a damaging and seemingly interminable Russian doping crisis, while the IOC has also felt obliged to reform its time-honoured host selection process. The biggest challenge of all has been attempting to put on the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer, a year later than planned. This was after the covid pandemic forced abandonment of the original 2020 time-slot.
In spite of this, Bach retains the overwhelming support of his colleagues, as illustrated by Wednesday’s proceedings. Having thanked members for their backing, the IOC’s ninth president – and the eighth European – offered immediate evidence of his confidence and ambition by floating an idea to amend the Olympic slogan, perhaps the best-known motto in sport. Instead of “citius, altius, fortius”, he suggested, this might be changed to “citius, altius, fortius – communis”, “faster, higher, stronger – together”.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino was among the dozens of IOC members who chipped in to proceedings, speaking as “the new kid on the block” – he was made a member only last year. He condensed his comments to three anodyne messages: congratulations; thank you; and looking forward.
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