Courageous reformer in the crisis

Jacques Rogge took up the presidency of the International Olympic Committee in 2001 with the reputation of an innovator and reformer. The Belgian’s program was courageous and courageous. He declared war on corruption as well as doping and the gigantism of the Olympic Games. The surgeon and orthopedic surgeon, who was born in Ghent on May 2, 1942, did not succeed in every cut necessary to improve the condition of the IOC during his twelve-year term in office. As the IOC announced on Sunday, Rogge has now died at the age of 79.

“He was an accomplished president who helped modernize and transform the IOC. He will be particularly remembered as an advocate of youth sport and as the initiator of the Youth Olympic Games, ”said IOC President Thomas Bach, who succeeded him in 2013. “He was also an ardent advocate of clean sport and fought tirelessly against the evils of doping.” But first and foremost, Rogge loved sport and being with athletes. “His joy in sport was contagious,” said Bach.

Rogge, a former rugby player and three-time Olympic participant in sailing, took over the IOC in one of the worst crises. In 1999 it became public that several IOC members were bribed to vote for the 2002 Winter Games to be awarded to Salt Lake City. A great burden that he had inherited from his predecessor Juan Antonio Samaranch, like the gigantism and explosion of costs for the games – and against which he wanted to act like a doctor. “You have to cut open the bump, drain the pus and let the wound dry out,” said Rogge.

The right person at the right time

He succeeded at least to some extent with the reform of the award process, which included the ban on IOC members from visiting Olympic applicants. In the end, ten members had lost their IOC office after accepting gifts and money from the organizers of the Salt Lake City Games.

Especially in the first years of his presidency, Rogge revamped the image of the top world organization of sport, which had been badly damaged by the corruption scandal. This also included intensifying the fight against doping, but without being able to shake the foundations of sports fraud, as the scandal surrounding Russia’s state-organized manipulation at the 2014 Games in Sochi showed. Nevertheless, Rogge gave the IOC more recognition – and observer status at the UN.

“He was absolutely the right person at the right time,” said his once influential Norwegian companion at the IOC, Gerhard Heiberg, when he said goodbye to Rogge. The eighth IOC president did not do everything right and did not achieve everything he set out to do.

This included the reform of the financially out of hand and oversized Olympic Games. Rogge succeeded in limiting the number of participants to around 10,000 athletes, but not modernizing the Olympic program and limiting the exorbitant investments for the construction of new sports facilities in the chosen Olympic cities to a reasonable level.

The Youth Olympic Games are a credit to Rogge

When, at the end of his term in office, he gave Bach a few more words on the way, it sounded like an admission that he had failed in essential things. “The quality of the games is important, the financial situation of the IOC is important and the fight against match-fixing, betting fraud and doping”, emphasized Rogge at the time and added: “The challenges will not change much.”

Of the six Olympic Games under his aegis, one event was particularly remembered – and not just a good one. At the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, his silence about the unrest in Tibet and the attacks on the torch relay put him in distress. Regarding the lack of freedom of the press and the rigorous suppression of protests in China, he only said that it was “not perfect”. The IOC cannot force changes in sovereign states and cannot “cure all diseases in the world”.

As a legacy, Rogge leaves the Youth Olympic Games, which were launched in 2010 in Singapore on his initiative. They should arouse the interest of young people in the Olympic idea and sport – also with the help of social media and trend sports.

In the twelve years of his presidency, the sailor Rogge led the IOC with integrity, but also to the limits of his physical strength. He therefore not only found the end of his term of office a relief. Rather, it was a relief for him to be freed from a great burden when the German Thomas Bach succeeded him on September 10, 2013. “I did my duty and did what had to be done,” said Rogge. (dpa)