MOSCOW -- Jacques Rogge, a Belgian surgeon and Olympic
sailor with a squeaky-clean reputation, was elected Monday to
succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch as president of the International
Olympic Committee.
IOC delegates overwhelmingly chose the 59-year-old Rogge for the
most powerful job in international sports on the second of a
possible four rounds of secret balloting.
|  | | Belgium's Jacques Rogge is known for staying out of trouble and building a consensus. |
In an early sign that he was moving away from the IOC's
scandal-scarred image of lavish hotel suites and first-class
travel, Rogge said he wanted to live with the athletes at the
Olympic Village at next year's Salt Lake City Winter Games.
"I would want to fulfill one of my dreams, that is the IOC
president would sleep in the Olympic Village," he said at a news
conference. "I think it's the best place to be in the Olympic
Games."
Rogge said repeatedly that his top priority is the success of
the Salt Lake Games, and that he would ask organizing chief Mitt
Romney on Tuesday if there was room in the village dorms at the
University of Utah.
"I hope he will make a room available for me," Rogge said.
Rogge defeated Kim Un-yong of South Korea, Dick Pound of Canada,
Pal Schmitt of Hungary and Anita DeFrantz of the United States, who
went out on the first ballot.
In the final round, Rogge's 59 votes -- three more than needed --
more than doubled the number for runner-up Kim, who received 23.
Pound had 22 votes and Schmitt six.
Rogge, the IOC's eighth president and seventh from Europe, has
vowed to step up the fight against drugs in sports and wants to
downsize the Olympics, saying they have lost their human face to
commercial excess.
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Who is Jacques Rogge?
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Nationality: Belgian.
Age: 59.
Personal: Married with two children.
Languages: Dutch, French, English, German, Spanish.
Profession: Orthopedic surgeon.
Sports achievements: Competed in 1968, 1972 and 1976 Olympics in
sailing (Finn class). Sailing world champion and twice runner-up,
16 times Belgian champion. Played on national rugby team.
Sports administration: President of the European Olympic
Committees since 1989; vice president Association of National
Olympic Committees; member of World Anti-Doping Agency council.
Key IOC posts: Member since 1991; member of the executive board
since 1998; chairman of coordination commission for 2000 Sydney
Games and 2004 Athens Games; vice chairman of medical commission;
member of executive committee of reform panel.
Comments: "Mr. Clean" image and strong European support base
offset relatively short spell within the IOC elite. Has said he
wants to downsize the games and restore their human face, saying
they have become too big and costly. Won acclaim for role in
success of Sydney Olympics but has harder task as coordinator for
troubled Athens Games. Says top priority is the fight against
doping.
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He enjoys an image unscathed by the bribery scandal involving
Salt Lake City's successful bid for the 2002 Winter Games.
A low-key member of the IOC since 1991, he won praise for
coordinating the highly successful Sydney Games last year and for
help in righting a foundering effort to organize the 2004 Games in
Athens.
"It is an important moment in my life and it is a great
responsibility, not only to lead the IOC but to succeed Juan
Antonio Samaranch, who has led the Olympic movement to a position
of strength," Rogge said in Moscow's ornate Hall of Columns.
"I will dedicate the next eight years to the promotion of the
Olympic movement and the IOC. It is not to be an easy task, but I
believe there is such strength that the IOC and the Olympic
movement will remain strong in the future," he said.
Rogge (pronounced ROH-guh), a three-time Olympic sailor in the
Finn class, said he wanted to dig into his new job "tomorrow
morning."
Supporters said Rogge was the perfect president for the IOC as
it recovers from the Salt Lake City corruption scandal.
"He is representative of the new and reformed IOC. ... It will
be very helpful in the United States and in particular Salt Lake
City," said Thomas Bach, an executive board member from Germany.
The ceremonial transfer of power took place in the elegant hall
near the Kremlin where Samaranch was installed as president 21
years ago, and the IOC's return there could not have seen a greater
contrast.
In 1980, the IOC was nearly bankrupt and buffeted by
international politics. The United States and many of its allies
were boycotting the Moscow Games to protest the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. Four years later, the Soviet bloc staged a counter
boycott of the Los Angeles Games.
Now, the Olympics are robust. Figures released Sunday showed
assets of almost $350 million. And, despite the greatest scandal in
their history 2½ years ago, IOC members seemed almost giddy in the
last week as they gathered for two momentous votes -- for the host
city of the 2008 Games, and for their president.
The first vote probably affected the second.
When Beijing won the 2008 Olympics in a landslide Friday, it
placed Kim's campaign in a corner. The IOC, based in Lausanne,
Switzerland, is emotionally and politically centered in Europe,
too, with 57 members, and it was unlikely Asia would get two big
wins at once.
Rogge also leads the European Olympic Committees, a
confederation of national Olympic agencies, giving him a solid
power base.
He got 46 votes on the first round, and -- while Pound and Kim
stayed nearly even -- picked up DeFrantz's first-round support as
well as some from Schmitt.
Opponents said Rogge also had Samaranch on his side. While the
outgoing president never publicly identified his choice, it was
obvious he was not displeased when he opened the white envelope and
read the result.
"While I am still the president of the International Olympic
Committee, I have the honor and the privilege to say the new
president of the IOC is Dr. Jacques Rogge," Samaranch announced.
As the crowd rose in ovation, presidents old and new embraced,
and Rogge stepped back and kissed DeFrantz on the cheek. He gave
brief, unscripted remarks in English and French, two of the five
languages he speaks fluently. Off to the side, Samaranch beamed
with pride.
"This is a very important day in my life," Samaranch said
later. "It's been so long that I've been head of the IOC. It's a
joy to have a credible successor. I am fulfilled. He is young and
he knows sport very well."
Rogge paid tribute to his predecessor and to former Belgian
Olympic committee leader Raoul Mollet, who brought him into the
Olympic movement in 1976.
"From Raoul Mollet, I learned sport," he said. "From Juan
Antonio Samaranch, I learned the politics of sport."
Samaranch's own son, Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., was elected to
the IOC earlier in the day, despite criticism. The outgoing
president stressed the nomination, which brought worldwide
questions of nepotism when it was announced in May, officially had
been made by the ruling executive board, not him.
In a rebuff to Samaranch, former Swiss President Adolf Ogi later
was rejected for IOC membership by a vote of 59-46, with four
abstentions. Samaranch's voice trembled as he read the result.
Kim, who went to his room after the vote and did not attend the
announcement ceremony, did not expect to win.
"It was not a race with fair play," Kim said. "I knew last
night I had lost."
His candidacy had to overcome a severe censure handed down in
the Salt Lake City bribery scandal and an ethics commission inquiry
on the eve of the election into reports he was offering delegates a
minimum of $50,000 for expenses in their home countries while doing
IOC work.
Pound had hinted he would quit the IOC if Kim won, and late
Monday resigned from all IOC commissions, including his posts as
the IOC's powerful marketing chief and president of the World
Anti-Doping Agency.
DeFrantz received nine votes in the first round.
"I had the same credentials or better than any of the
candidates," the 49-year-old DeFrantz said. "The IOC made a
decision and, as we say in the oath, 'once it's made, it's made.' "
Rogge is the second Belgian to lead the IOC, after Henri de
Baillet-Latour (1925-42). The only non-European president has been
American Avery Brundage (1952-72). Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories |
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