Thomas Bach has not yet spent two months in the IOC presidential office, since his election on September 10, but the German has already stamped his style there. Energetic and determined. Proof of this was given over the weekend, when the new strong man of the Olympic movement invited the members of the executive commission and the leaders of the various international federations to meet, in order to review the approach to combating doping, fixing illegal matches and betting.
This summit meeting, the first of its kind since the IOC General Assembly in Buenos Aires at the beginning of September, was organized discreetly. It was held behind closed doors at the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland. Thomas Bach chaired it after he had just returned from a several-day visit to Sochi.
Delegates supported the decision of the IOC Executive Board, taken last August, to appoint Briton Craig Reedie as the new president of the World Anti-Doping Agency. They also validated the changes proposed by the IOC to the World Anti-Doping Code, notably increasing suspensions for doping from two to four years. Athletes who are caught in the act will now be banned from at least one Olympic cycle.
Obviously in a hurry to move forward and set the tone for his mandate, Thomas Bach also opened wide the issue of rigged bets and illegal matches. A fight that the IOC wants to lead by relying on a “special unit”, a sort of commando tasked with risk prevention, information and harmonization of rules between the IOC and the sports movement.
Another fundamental question raised on Sunday in Lausanne: the international sports calendar. The parties present agreed to send a message to FIFA, but without mentioning it, and its desire to move the 2022 World Cup to winter. ‘Any initiative must respect the unique character of the Olympic Games,” said the IOC press release. A way of repeating that the Games cannot be put in competition with another event, however prestigious it may be.
Finally, Thomas Bach wished to raise during the meeting the possibility of a reform of the Olympic city candidacy process, the hypothesis of a change in the Games program and the means of attracting a younger audience.
Among the leaders present, in addition to Thomas Bach and his vice-president, the Australian John Coates, the American Larry Probst, head of the USOC, the Swiss Sepp Blatter, the Moroccan Nawal El Moutawakel, the Russian Alexander Zhukov , the British Craig Reedie and, of course, the very influential Kuwaiti Sheik Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah.
