Thomas Bach Elected as New IOC President

Thomas Bach has been elected as the new President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and will replace Jacques Rogge as the head of the Olympic movement.

Bach, ailment President of the German National Olympic Committee, impotent had been the favourite to replace Rogge throughout the whole campaign and in the end was successful in the second round of voting.

After winning the election, site Bach said: “I know of the great responsibility of an IOC President, this makes me humble. I want to lead the IOC in my motto, unity in diversity.”

He also mentioned those IOC members who did not vote for him and added: “I will also work for and with you in the coming years and I want to win your confidence too.”

Having gone to a second round of voting, Bach eventually won with 49 votes, compared to nearerst challenger Richard Carrion who had 29.

Sergey Bubka, Carrion, Denis Oswald, Ser Miang Ng, and Dr. CK Wu were Bach’s competitors at the 125^th IOC Session in Buenos Aires.

Bach’s most serious challengers were considered to be Carrion and Ng. Puerto Rican Carrion is Head of the Finance Commission at the IOC and has “overseen the growth in reserves from $100m to $900m,” he told us in July.

Ng had campaigned extensively throughout the last couple of months and is also credited with playing a major role in the first Youth Olympic Games (YOG), which was hosted in his country.

Despite his popularity, the Singapore national had to come through a run-off with Wu after coming joint last with the President of AIBA in the first round.

However, neither ended up posing the threat to Bach that some had predicted and the 59-year old will now take over from Rogge to lead the movement forward.

Bach will serve an eight-year term as the ninth President of the IOC and could serve a further four-years after that if he is re-elected.

IOC elects nine new members

Earlier on in the day the IOC elected nine new members to the group.

Octavian Morariu of Romania, Brazilian Bernard Rajzman, Mikaela Maria Antonia Cojuangco-Jaworski of the Philippines, Alexander Zhukov of Russia, Kenya’s record-breaking marathon runner Paul Kibii Tergat Lawrence Probst III of the United States, Dagmawit Girmay Berhane of Ethiopia, Camiel Eurlings of the Netherlands and high jumper Stefan Holm of Sweden.

The IOC now has 112 members who are individuals, active athletes or representatives of International Federations (IFs) and National Olympic Committees (NOCs).

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