The Olympic movement has a new leader and Thomas Bach is his name. Jacques Rogge announced that it took two votes for Bach to be elected. Details on the vote are below, courtesy of Alfons Juck.
The Olympic movement is in sound financial footing and the interest in the 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics, as well as the Winter Olympics, continues to grow.
This morning, in the Financial Times, Michael Payne, a former IOC marketing head, spoke about the challenges for the new President: attracting the young to the Olympic movement, keeping drugs, sports betting at bay, controlling the size of the movement, and making the Summer Olympics a bit more edgy to appeal to the youth of the world.
Thomas Bach, like Jacques Rogge, was an Olympian. Bach was a fencer in the 1976 Montreal Games. We wish Mr. Bach the very best as he leads the movement of global sports into a new era. I hope that Mr. Bach sees the opportunities with youth that athletics, our sport provides, and continues to give athletics more visibility.
THOMAS BACH THE NEW OLYMPIC LEADER
BUENOS AIRES (ARG): Germany’s Thomas Bach has been named as the new President of the International Olympic Committee, the most powerful position in world sport, succeeding Jacques Rogge. Jacques Rogge, the outgoing President, announced that the members had elected a new President after two rounds of voting. Just as in the vote for the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, there had been a runoff in the first round between C K Wu and Ser Miang Ng, long considered to be Bach’s main challenger. Wu, President of the International Boxing Association (AIBA), lost and was eliminated (36:56 votes). In the first round Bach got 43 votes, Richard Carrion 23, Sergey Bubka 8 and Denis Oswald 7. In the 2nd round Bach 49, Carrion 29, Miang 6, Oswald 5 and Bubka 4. Bach who will lead the movement at least until 2021 is 9th president, first from Germany, 8th from Europe and first with an olympic gold medal (fencing in 1976 in Montreal). The only non-European was American Avery Brundage, who held the position between 1952 and 1972.
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Larry Eder has had a 50-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself."
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