International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach promised to give “safe, secure” for the Tokyo Olympics this year as he was reelected for a second term on Wednesday. As he opened the IOC session, Bach said it was no longer a question of whether the Olympics were postponed last year as the coronovirus epidemic spread around the world, but under what circumstances they would be held. Bach said, “Tokyo remains the best Olympic city ever and at this time we have no reason to doubt that the opening ceremony will take place on 23 July.”
“The question is not, of course, how the Olympic Games will be.
“The IOC is working at full speed together with its Japanese partners and friends to make the postponed Olympic Games a safe expression of the peace, solidarity and resilience of mankind in overcoming the epidemic.”
Bach said his aim was to create “a safe, secure and appropriate environment for all athletes”.
Local Japanese organizers are due to announce by the end of the month whether foreign spectators will be allowed to participate in the Games, although it has been widely reported that they will be stopped due to Kovid-19 concerns.
Heavy support
The 67-year-old Bach received unanimous support in the election for IOC President, in which he was the only candidate to have 93 of the members of the IOC with 93 valid votes in favor of re-election.
“Thank you very much from below for my heart’s talk” for this overwhelming vote of faith and trust, he said, sending a ‘virtual’ hag to his supporters.
“This is more overwhelming given the reforms and difficult decisions that we had to take.
The German described his first eight-year mandate as “not so easy”, saying, “It touches me deeply and also makes me humble.”
“Hopefully, we will face one less problem than us in the last eight. Who knows ?!”
Bach is a popular, long-standing figure within the IOC. He was elected an IOC member at the age of 37 and went on to a series of influential roles within the organization before being elected its ninth president in September 2013.
Bach was successful for his initial tenure as Jacques Rogge of Belgium. Under the IOC rules introduced in 1999, Bach’s second term would last four years.
The Tokyo Olympics are the most pressing agenda item at the beginning of its new term, which became unexpectedly eventful after the start of eight years.
In his reign as IOC chief, Bach has struggled with a number of political challenges, and has overseen the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and the 2016 Rio Summer Games, both regarded as the most troublesome in recent years goes.
He has also been a major player in the ongoing Russian doping saga, although the IOC came under criticism from some quarters for not issuing a blanket ban on its state-sponsored doping system to Moscow.
Bach came under fire for reinstating the Russian National Olympic Committee after the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
However, they are credited with reforms aimed at streamlining the bidding process to cut costs and better attract potential host cities, with the Olympic Agenda 2020 in place.
It was observed that Paris allowed the 2024 Olympics in 2017 and Los Angeles the 2028 Games in 2017, and the IOC gave Brisbane the preferred candidate status for the 2032 Games last month.
Promoted
But German lawyers and businessmen may well put their biggest challenge before him, in the form of the deadly Kovid-19 pandemic, with Beijing scheduled to host the 2022 Winter Olympics six months after the proposed Tokyo Games.
IOC member Dick Pound, assimilating near-blanket support for Bach, described his re-election as “particularly important in these difficult times”.
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