It was an open secret: Thomas Bach, the German lawyer and former Olympic fencing champion, has been since Thursday, May 9, 2013, the first declared candidate to succeed Jacques Rogge as president of the IOC. A leader of the German Olympic Committee had slipped the information the day before into the ear of a journalist from the agency Reuters, on condition of anonymity. By specifying, in the same tone of confidence, that the announcement should be made today, Ascension Day, during a press conference in Frankfurt.
The confidence was credible. Thomas Bach officially announced his candidacy, in front of an audience of journalists, explaining that he had informed Jacques Rogge and his colleagues at the IOC the day before. He explained that he had always dedicated a large part of his life to Olympic sports, from his first training as a young boy to his role as boss of the German Olympic Committee, including his title at the Montreal Games in 1976. Then he clarified: “I feel very well prepared. And particularly honored that, in recent months, many colleagues from the IOC and the entire German sports community have expressed their support for my project. »
Thomas Bach candidate, the information is not surprising. Current vice-president of the IOC, the 59-year-old German, who joined the house in 1991, has never really made a secret of his presidential ambitions. He has been considered for several years as the favorite in the race for the chair of Jacques Rogge, who will relinquish the position next September, in Buenos Aires, at the end of two mandates of eight and four years.
In addition to leading the powerful DOSB, the German Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach has the advantage of sitting on the Executive Board of the IOC, the most influential body (too much, according to some members) of the Olympic institution. He is European, an added asset within an Olympic movement where more than 4 out of 10 representatives come from the Old Continent. Finally, the German chairs the legal commission, a position which has led him to rule on some of the most thorny cases in world sport, starting with the numerous disputes linked to doping.
According to the rules of the IOC, which are always very strict, the deadline to apply is June 10, 2013. Thomas Bach wanted to leave first. Logic. But by leaving the woods in this way, he obliges himself to respect the code of ethics imposed on applicants, which is very strict in terms of communication.
Across the way, names are jostling, without being official. Let us cite, in bulk, the Singaporean Ser Miang Ng, also vice-president of the IOC, emerged strengthened by the success of the organization in his city-state of the first Youth Olympic Games, the Ukrainian Sergueï Bubka, very charismatic but without doubt still too recent in the house, the Port-Rican Richard Carrion, the boss of the finance commission, at the head of which he secured a contract of more than 3 billion euros for the 2020 Games with the American channel NBC, the Taiwanese Ching-Kuo Wu, powerful president of AIBA, the international boxing federation.
To this list, we must add the names of two Swiss: Denis Oswald, the current president of the International Rowing Federation, for a long time at the head of the Association of International Summer Olympic Sports Federations, and René Fasel, president of the International Ice Hockey Federation, currently very active in attracting NHL stars to the Sochi Games. Finally, the name of the Moroccan Nawal El Moutawakel is often cited. She would be the only woman, and the only African, in the race. But it is rumored, in the corridors of the IOC, that the former Olympic champion in the 400m hurdles would ultimately not be up for it.
Photo @imago, Martin Hoffmann
