GENEVA – IOC President Thomas Bach warned against the Olympic boycotts on Friday and also confirmed that he will seek reelection next year.
It looks like Bach will be four more years old in 2021 after almost half of the 100 members of the International Olympic Committee worldwide praised him in an online version of their annual meeting.
“As you can imagine, I could listen to this forever,” Bach joked for nearly a full hour of tributes to his leadership since he began his first eight-year term in 2013, and of members welcoming his second-term bid. .
Bach’s first term was clouded by the Russian doping scandal, but it has been a financially stable period for the IOC. US broadcaster NBC signed a long-term rights deal and new top-tier sponsors were added, including Chinese retail giant Alibaba.
The Beijing Winter Olympics, currently scheduled for February 2022, will be an early highlight and potential test of Bach’s second term and, according to current IOC rules ,.
Although serious talk of a boycott has not started, China’s human rights record is an expected goal before the Olympics. Some lawmakers and diplomats have criticized China for its arrest and treatment of its Muslim minority Uyghur and pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.
“Boycotts and discrimination on political or national grounds are once again a real danger,” said Bach in his opening speech in Lausanne, Switzerland. “A sports boycott only punishes the country’s athletes who boycott them and deprives its people of sharing the success, pride and joy of their Olympic team.”
When asked at a subsequent press conference whether the IOC recently discussed the Uyghur issue with the Chinese authorities, Bach limited the focus of his role: “whatever is related to the Olympics” rather than society at large.
“This is our mission. And we are totally sure that, there, China will fulfill this commitment,” he said.
The boycott issue is personal to Bach, who won a gold medal in team fencing at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, but was unable to defend the title when West Germany joined the United States and others in refusing to send teams to the 1980 Moscow Games.
“The Soviet army remained nine more years in Afghanistan after the boycott,” said Bach, who as a spokesman for the athletes in 1980 failed to change the mind of German political leaders. “It seems that today, some just don’t want to learn anything from history.
“The only political effect the 1980 boycott had was to trigger the revenge boycott of the following [Los Angeles] Olympics, “he said.
If Bach is reelected without opposition as expected, possibly in Athens in June, a major challenge for his next term is likely to be the economic and social recovery of sports from the global health crisis.
In March, the IOC postponed this year’s Tokyo Olympics for one year. Organizers confirmed on Friday that they had secured all venues and the Athletes’ Villa for next year. IOC members also ratified on Friday postponing the 2022 Dakar Youth Olympic Games in Senegal until 2026.
“Unfortunately, we are already seeing clear signs in some parts of the world that society and nations are driven by even more selfishness and self-interest,” said Bach. “This leads to increased confrontation and politicization of all aspects of life: culture, economy, health, science, humanitarian aid. Even the fight against doping is already being targeted.”
That comment seemed to criticize the United States, after a government-funded study last month raised the possibility of withholding money from the World Anti-Doping Agency.
The IOC said its presidential election will be in the “spring of 2021” as members agreed to have two full meetings next year. The second will be held in Tokyo on the sidelines of the Olympics.
Also on Friday, the IOC elected five new members, including two-time Olympic champion Sebastian Coe of Great Britain, the president of World Athletics. The others are: former Olympic champion María Colón de Cuba; Princess Reema Bandar Al-Saud, Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States; Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, the former President of Croatia; and Battushig Batbold from Mongolia.
Two members, John Coates of Australia and Ser Miang Ng of Singapore, were elevated to the rank of IOC Vice President, with seats on the executive board.
Mikaela Cojuangco Jaworski of the Philippines and Gerardo Werthein of Argentina, one of Bach’s main allies, won two vacant seats on the 15-member board.
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