Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), has announced that he is not going to stay in office for a third term. This was reported by DW, according to UNN.
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"New times call for new leaders," the 70-year-old German lawyer said at the 142nd IOC general meeting in Paris on Saturday night, ahead of the Olympic Games' close on Sunday.
Bach, an Olympic gold medalist in team fencing in 1976, has been president of the IOC since 2013, the first Olympic champion ever to be elected to this position.
Extending his tenure to a third term and beyond 12 years would lead to a change in the Olympic Charter, something Bach considered doing as recently as the 141st IOC session in Mumbai in October 23.
But now he has backed out, saying that "at my age I am no longer the best captain" and that he has listened to "my family's opinion.
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During his tenure, Bach is credited with emphasizing the importance of sustainable development in the bids for the Summer and Winter Games in his "Olympic Program 2020." He enjoys broad support from the world federations that benefit from and depend on IOC funding. Under Bach, the IOC prided itself on investing 90% of its revenues back into sport.
He has also faced criticism, especially in the West, for courting authoritarian rulers and dictators, including Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in 2018, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
He has also been accused of turning a blind eye to state-sponsored Russian doping and criticized for his apparent reluctance to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from participating in Paris 2024 after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
"By announcing his resignation, Bach is taking a different approach to the ruling elites he is accused of being close to," the German newspaper Leipziger Volkszeitung commented on the news.
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