Thomas Bach

Thomas Bach was born in 1953 in the city of Würzburg in southern Germany. Since childhood, he wanted to play football, but his parents, despite his protests, sent the child to the fencing section. In this sport, Bach achieved significant success, becoming a multiple champion of Germany and two-time world champion in rapier fencing. Thomas Bach won Olympic gold at the 1976 Montreal Games as part of the national team. Thomas Bach is a lawyer by education. He graduated from the University of Würzberg. He is fluent in native German, French, English and Italian. Bach is known as a successful businessman with experience in large international companies, including Adidas. In 1991, Bach was elected a member of the IOC (in the same year as the future IOC President Jacques Rogge). In 1996-2000 he was a member of the IOC Executive Committee, and in 2000-2004 he was Vice-President of the IOC, re-elected Vice-President in 2006. He chaired a number of IOC commissions. Since September 2013, he has chaired the IOC Legal Commission and the Sport and Law Commission. He was a member of the supervisory board of the organizing committee of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. In Germany, in May 2006, with the active participation of Bach, the German Sports Union and the German National Olympic Committee were merged into the German Olympic Sports Confederation, which combines the functions of the Ministry of Sport and the Olympic Committee. The new organization includes about 90,000 sports clubs with 27 million members (about a third of Germany's population). In recent years, Bach has dealt with doping issues and headed the appeals department of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne. In September 2013, the 59-year-old Bach became one of the IOC presidential candidates in connection with the departure of Jacques Rogge. It is known that the campaign with the nomination of Thomas Bach as IOC President was openly supported by Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, President of the Association of National Committees. The future president's election campaign primarily involves the fight against corruption, which Bach considers one of the biggest problems of the Olympic movement. In addition, he considers it appropriate to improve the activities of the IOC by creating optimal and comfortable working conditions for its members. This, in his opinion, will allow to show more clearly the individuality of each of them. He considers another important aspect to give IOC commissions greater powers and influence over IOC decisions. As for athletes, among the proposals he makes is that athletes should be directly involved in the life of the IOC be aware of all developments and also have some influence on IOC decisions. The fight against doping, in turn, must enter a new direction. Bach proposes to focus not on detecting it in athletes, but on working with young athletes, which should be aimed at outlining all the negative consequences of the use of illicit drugs. Thomas Bach also proposes to review the application form for the selection of the Olympic city and give the cities that still won more opportunities for creativity, which, accordingly, will allow to see more creatine in projects. Bach, in turn, proposes to make the Games program more flexible and to consider individual disciplines to a greater extent, rather than holistic sports. In addition, Bach wishes to include new sports and physical activities and physical activity in the Youth Games. He noted that they should not be limited to Olympic sports, but open to younger and more modern sports, which are popular with young people. On September 10, he was elected the new president of the IOC. Bach became the first German in history and the first Olympic champion to head the IOC. 49 out of 93 IOC members voted for him. Only Puerto Rican Richard Carrion competed for the winner (29 votes). The new IOC president has an almost impeccable reputation in the Olympic movement and business. However, for the sake of objectivity, it should be mentioned that in 2008 Bach unexpectedly came under fire from many after it became clear that Siemens had been paying him € 5,000 3 a day since 2000, in addition to committing a one-off free.transfer for 400 thousand euros. Forced to make excuses, Bach said that he provided Siemens consulting services to find customers in Arab countries. According to the results of the voting, the International Olympic Committee considers that incident long overdue. The decisive factor in the election was the organizational and business authority of the new head of the IOC, together with his experience of successful perennial work in the Olympic movement and his reputation as a skilled diplomat.