PARIS – As most everyone knows, George Washington is the first president of the United States of America.
One of the stories American schoolkids learn about Washington is how he decided to stop being president at the end of his second four-year term. The new country had broken away from Britain. There they had a king. The king is king until he dies. In this new country, Washington said, things were going to be different.
In 21st century jargon, we would call what Washington did an expression of best practices and world-class governance.
Speaking Saturday before the fuil membership of the International Olympic Committee, president Thomas Bach, nearing the end of his second term, pulled a George Washington. He said he would step down next year, at the end of his mandated 12 years.
The IOC president speaking Saturday to the session
“You all know me and therefore you know that this Olympic movement, its athletes,” and here Bach, seemingly overcome with emotion, paused to collect himself, the assembly breaking into applause, “and its values have and always will be central to my thinking and close to my heart.”
Bach came to office in 2013 with a self-proclaimed mandate for reform. He has, in fact, achieved some significant measure of success, dragging the IOC, a 19th century European institution, into the 21st via what was originally a 40-point plan called ‘Olympic Agenda 2020,’ enacted in 2014. Too, he saw through the Games of Tokyo in 2021 and Beijing in 2022, marked by Covid – ensuring that a generation of athletes got their due.
For all that, history may show that the most important thing Bach did was what he committed to on Saturday.
It simply cannot be overstated how critical it is for the IOC – dogged, still, by perceptions worldwide that the Olympic enterprise at its many levels is rife with corruption – to adhere to the highest standards of governance.
Process, as this space likes to note, is exceptionally boring. Until it is not.
This is one of those times where sticking with process is actually kind of a thrill.
Consider:
Avery Brundage served as IOC president from 1952 to 1972. That’s 20 years.
Lord Killanin did eight years after that, done in by Munich and boycotts.
Juan Antonio Samaranch was president from 1980 to 2001, 21 years.
The end of the Samaranch era saw the corruption scandal tied to Salt Lake City’s winning bid for the 2002 Winter Games. That scandal sparked significant changes to the Olympic Charter that included presidential term limits – a first term of eight followed by a second of four, all in 12. As Bach said Saturday from the lectern, he was one of the authors of that change.
Jacques Rogge took over in 2001 from Samaranch. By the time he reached the end of his term, in 2013, Rogge’s health was in marked decline. There was never an issue about whether he would continue. The only issue was who would follow.
That turned out to be Bach.
The IOC runs best when the president is in firm control, and there is no question that is the way Bach likes it. Some critics say maybe there’s too much control – that the sessions, for instance, are tightly scripted and there’s little to no dissent.
Because the sessions have gotten so scripted, it was a piece of outright kabuki theater at last year’s session in Mumbai when four members, including Algeria’s Mustafa Berraf, head of the African confederation of national Olympic committees, stood up to suggest that perhaps Bach ought to stay on past 12 years.
At a news conference here Sunday, Berraf said when asked about Bach, “Honestly, he is a man who will be very, very difficult to replace,” adding a moment later, “He will be very difficult to replace in all human aspects: psychological, technological, scientific. He is a man of exceptional aura.”
Bach was elected in September 2013. He announced Saturday his term would end in June 2025, and an election would take place in March 2025.
The three-month transition between election and the inauguration of a new president also adds a new twist to IOC governance.
The little show in Mumbai generated considerable will-he or won’t-he chatter within Olympic circles. Bach, though, is a gifted politician. What the show really did was buy time.
1/ It’s not far-fetched to understand that as of fall 2023, by that Mumbai assembly, with under two years to go in his presidency, some would start to see Bach as a lame duck. A lame-duck presidency is not the way to get through arguably the most important Summer Games in the Bach years, in Paris, the first Games conducted entirely under the Olympic Agenda reforms – especially given the wars in Ukraine and, as it would turn out, the Middle East. Bach needed everyone on board.
Since Mumbai, there has been, like, zero talk of Thomas Bach being a lame duck.
2/ With the prospect of a presidential election on the horizon inevitably comes campaigning, shadow or otherwise. The show in Mumbai put an abrupt end to any campaigning.
A bylaw to Rule 20 of the charter says presidential candidacies “are declared three months before the date of the opening of the Session at which the election is due to take place.” The session is scheduled for March 18-21, 2025. That means formal declarations would presumably be due Dec. 18-ish.
Of course, there’s an exception. The Charter gives the policy-making Executive Board the right to modify the due date “if, in its opinion, the circumstances justify such modification.”
How many candidacies are likely before Dec. 18? More than less, probably.
A reasonably informed list of those considering it or being urged to consider it would include the likes of, in no particular order:
Prince Feisal of Jordan; Neven Ilic of Chile; Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. of Spain; Seb Coe of Great Britain; Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe; Nenad Lalović of Serbia.
Nobody has declared yet. Why would they?
Coe, wrapping up the greatest meet in the history of track and field, held a news conference Sunday at which, predictably, the first question was whether he was running for the IOC top job.
“Look .. if the opportunity arose, I would give it serious thought,” he said. “The opportunity has arisen. And, clearly, I need to think about that.”
Presumably, others are assessing their odds as well. The IOC presidency comes open according to a system. That system is spelled out in the IOC’s organic document.
Which Thomas Bach has now made sure is the way it really works.
“In order to safeguard the credibility of the IOC,” Bach said Saturday as part of his remarks, “we all, and in particular, I, as your president, have to respect the high standards of good governance which we have set for ourselves.
“… During all these years, you, my dear colleagues and friends, have always followed the mantra I pronounced when introducing the Olympic Agenda: change or be changed. This mantra,” he said, “does not only apply to the comprehensive and far-reaching reforms we have undertaken.
“This mantra also applies to me.”