Thomas Bach resigns as IOC President

Article posted by Coliseum, March 5^th, 2025

Image: Dr. Thomas Bach, Manfred E. Fritsche, CC BY-SA 2.0 de

Thomas Bach has tendered his resignation as President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Olympics.com said Bach made his announcement at the IOC Session in Paris that he would not seek an extension to his presidency despite calls from IOC Members to do so.

The IOC Executive Board (EB) accepted Bach’s resignation of IOC as an IOC Member, effective after 23 June 2025.

This will be the day of the handover to the new IOC President, who will be elected on 20 March 2025 in Costa Navarino, Greece.

HE was initially elected on 10 September 2013, as the ninth President of the IOC. He was re-elected for a second four-year term on 10 March 2021.

Bach became an Olympic champion when he won a gold medal with his team in foil fencing at the Games of the XXI Olympiad in Montreal in 1976.

In 2006, he was elected as the founding President of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB).

Bach was an athletes’ representative at the XI Olympic Congress in Baden-Baden (1981) and a founding member of the IOC Athletes’ Commission.

He was elected as an IOC Member in 1991, and as a member of the IOC Executive Board in 1996, and served as an IOC Vice-President for more than 10 years. He has also chaired several IOC commissions.

Seven candidates will compete in the election for the presidency of the IOC at the 144th IOC Session held from 18 to 21 March 2025 in Greece.

The candidates presented their programmes, in camera, to the full IOC membership at a meeting held in Lausanne (Switzerland) on 30 January 2025.

They include athletics legend Lord Sebastian Coe and British businessman Johan Eliasch.

The only female candidate is Kirsty Coventry from Zimbabwe who was a decorated Olympic swimmer, winning Gold medals at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.

Spaniard Juan Antonio Samaranch is the son of the former IOC President who bore his name.

Samaranch Snr was IOC President for 21 years between 1980 and 2001 while his son has been an active member on the IOC for two decades.

The other candidates include HRH Prince Feisal Al Hussein from Jordan, David Lappartient of France who is the President of the UCI – Cycling’s global governing body and Morinari Watanabe from Japan.

The International Olympic Committee is a not-for-profit, civil, non-governmental, international organisation made up of volunteers which is committed to building a better world through sport.

It redistributes more than 90 per cent of its income to the wider sporting movement, which means that every day the equivalent of $4.2 million goes to help athletes and sports organisations at all levels around the world.

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