Berlin (dpa) – Thomas Bach was on Wednesday all but unanimously re-elected as president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for a final term of four years at a virtual IOC Session.
The Session voted 93-1, with four abstentions, in favour of Bach who was the only candidate.
German lawyer Bach, 67, an Olympic fencing gold medallist in 1976, was first elected IOC president in 2013 for an eight-year term in succession of Jacques Rogge.
Under IOC rules he can serve one more term over four years, with a new president to be elected in 2025.
“Thanks from the bottom of the heart for the overwhelming vote of confidence. This is touching me deeply and making me humble,” Bach said after the IOC members congratulated him in many languages once vice-president Anita DeFrantz had announced the result.
“The task is now to make the Olympic Movement fit for (the) post-corona world,” he later added.
Bach said that the global coronavirus pandemic had shown that solidarity is important and suggested to change the Olympic slogan “faster, higher, stronger” to “faster, higher, stronger – together.”
“This could be a strong commitment to our core value of solidarity and an appropriate and humble adaption to the challenges of this new world,” he said.
Bach’s pressing tasks in his second term include overseeing this summer’s Tokyo Olympics amid the pandemic and the Beijing 2022 Winter Games where China is under fire for its treatment of the Uighurs minority and the crackdown on protests in Hong Kong.
He reiterated in his opening address that the IOC and Japan are fully committed, Tokyo the best prepared hosts and that “the question is not whether, but how these Olympic Games will take place.
“There is no doubt the opening ceremony will take place on July 23.”
“We must always be guided by science and facts,” Bach said, naming them the driving force for the playbooks developed for every stakeholder at the Games.
Bach highlighted that some 270 World Cup events or world championships have been held since September, with some 30,000 athletes overall and more than 200,000 coronavirus tests.
“Not a single event turned into a virus spreader. That is obvious proof that an international event can be organized while safeguarding the health of everyone,” Bach said, adding that the Olympics have an advantage because “several vaccines are already widely in use.”
Bach said that the door on whether to allow fans from abroad to attend would be kept open as long as possible, after Japanese news reports suggested only Japanese fans would attend.
New Tokyo organizing committee president Seiko Hashimoto extended her “heartfelt congratulations” – and some 40 IOC members had heaped praise on Bach and his leadership after the election and around the ratification of the Olympic Agenda 2020 reform programme report, with DeFrantz’s words at the end moving him to tears.
The next step of the reform programme named Olympic Agenda 2020+5 and to be ratified by the Session on Friday.
The 15 recommendations include the IOC to become more digital, esports to be supported and athletes’ rights to be reinforced, after the original programme saw bidding and hosting being made cheaper and Games more sustainable.
“The coronavirus crisis has changed our world in profound ways. Nobody should even dream of going back to the way things were before,” Bach said, naming Olympic Agenda 2020+5 “our vision for this new world.”
In addition, many athletes have been calling for a bigger say and more freedom to express themselves and for commercial opportunities at the Games.
Bach also said that thanks to Agenda 2020 sponsorship income will triple to 3 billion dollars 2021-2024, and more than 4 billion dollars secured from sponsors and broadcasters for 2029-2032.
The three-day Session continues Thursday with reports from Tokyo, Beijing and Paris 2024 organizers, as well as from the Future Hosts commission which recently named Brisbane/Queensland the preferred bidder for 2032.
