Thomas Bach

Early life and education

Bach was born in Würzburg. He grew up in Tauberbischofsheim, where he lived with his parents until 1977. Bach earned a doctor of law (Dr. iur. utr.) degree in 1983 at the University of Würzburg. In addition to his native German, he speaks fluent French, English and Spanish.

Fencing career

Bach is a former foil fencer, who competed for West Germany. In 1971, at 17 years of age, he won the German national junior foil championship, and a bronze medal at the Junior World Fencing Championships in Chicago, Illinois.

At the World Fencing Championships he also won a team silver medal in 1973 in Gothenburg, Sweden, a team gold medal in 1977 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a team bronze medal in 1979 in Melbourne, Australia. Bach completed his last competitive international match on 26 October 1980 in Shanghai.

He won a foil team gold medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada. On 11 November 2017, Bach was formally granted the use of the post-nominal letters "OLY".

Nationally, Bach won the 1977 and 1978 German Individual Foil Championships. He also won the 1978 European Cup of Champions of foil teams.

DOSB Presidency

Bach served as the President of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), prior to becoming President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). In order to run for IOC Presidency, he resigned as the head of the DOSB on 16 September 2013, having served in that position since 2006. He was replaced by Alfons Hörmann, and remained a member of the DOSB Executive Board. Additionally, he resigned as the head of Ghorfa Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Bach would, however, continue serving as the head of Michael Weinig AG Company, a company in the industrial woodworking machinery industry that has its headquarters in Bach's hometown of Tauberbischofsheim.

In 2012, Bach headed Munich's bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics. In the host city election, Munich secured 25 votes as South Korea's Pyeongchang was elected as host city with 63 votes.

IOC Presidency

On 9 May 2013, Bach confirmed that he would run for President of the International Olympic Committee.

Bach previously served as chief scrutineer for the votes on the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics.

2013 and 2021 IOC presidential election

Bach was elected to an eight-year term as IOC President at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires on 10 September 2013. He secured 49 votes in the final round of voting, giving him the majority needed to be elected. He succeeded Jacques Rogge, who had served as IOC President from 2001 to 2013. Bach would be eligible to run for a second four-year term at the 137th IOC Session in 2021 until 2025.

Bach's successful election came against five other candidates: Sergey Bubka, Richard Carrión, Ng Ser Miang, Denis Oswald and Wu Ching-Kuo. The result of the election was as follows:

Bach officially moved into the IOC presidential office at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 17 September 2013, a week after being elected president.

At a meeting of the 137th session of the International Olympic Committee on 10 March 2021, Bach was re-elected to an additional four-year term as president. Bach, 67, was re-elected by a 93–1 vote from 94 valid votes during the session which was held virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As the organization's rules limit the president's term to eight years with one renewal of four years, Bach stepped down in 2025.

Olympic Agenda 2020

Following his election as IOC President, Bach indicated his desire to change the Olympic bidding process and make sustainable development a priority. He stated that the current bidding process "asks too much, too early". These forty proposed reforms became known as Olympic Agenda 2020; they were all unanimously approved at the 127th IOC Session in Monaco in 2014.

Olympic host city elections

The first bidding process over which Thomas Bach presided was for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Bids were due in November 2013, and the host city, Beijing, was elected to host the 2022 Winter Olympics at the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in July 2015. Lausanne was elected to host the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics during that same session.

During the bidding process for the 2024 Summer Olympics in 2017, President Bach proposed a joint awarding of the 2024 and 2028 Summer Olympics after several bidders withdrew. The IOC later approved a plan to award the 2024 Olympics to Paris, with Los Angeles securing the right to host the 2028 Olympics. President Bach presided over the electoral procedures at the 131st IOC Session in Lima, Peru. Both cities were unanimously elected.

Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo were elected to host the 2026 Winter Olympics at the 134th IOC Session in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2019.

Reception and challenges

Bach's tenure received mixed reviews from observers. Writing in The Telegraph, its chief sports writer Oliver Brown wrote that Bach had spent "13 years has masqueraded as the kindly figurehead of the Olympic movement, while acting like a ruthless autocrat."

Thomas Bach came under criticism when it became known in April 2008 that he had a consulting contract with Siemens from the turn of the millennium, which was remunerated with 400,000 Euros in 2008 and provided for additional expenses of 5,000 Euros per day. Bach is said to have organized invitations from the Arab world for the Siemens Group. Siemens supervisory board members criticized that with such high fees, additional daily payment was "absolutely unusual." They also criticized a possible conflict of interest, because Siemens profited from contracts related to sports, and overlaps between his professional activities and his work as a sports official.

Bach has been criticized for his work as president of Ghorfa Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Ghorfa). Ghorfa legalizes trade documents of companies that want to export to Arab countries. It does so by certifying that the products do not contain parts from Israel. The practice was introduced in the 1970s as part of the Arab League boycott of Israel.

One of the biggest challenges Bach has been faced with as IOC President is having to deal with Russia's state-sponsored doping scandal. This program did begin prior to his presidency, but nonetheless it has become a pressing issue during his tenure. It had been discovered that Russia tampered with the anti-doping lab at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and that the government had overseen mass doping among the Russian Olympic athletes for many years. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics, Bach's call to "respect the rules and stay clean" was widely interpreted as a reference to the Russian scandal. Bach was harshly criticized for what many see as turning a blind eye to Russia's state-sponsored Olympic doping effort. Jim Walden, attorney for whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, called Bach's move to reinstate the Russian Olympic Committee following the 2018 Winter Olympics, despite the failed drug tests during the Games, "weakness in the face of evil".

There was wide speculation that Vladimir Putin's support was a key factor in Thomas Bach's election as IOC president in September 2013. It was reported that Putin had congratulated Bach by phone only a few minutes after his election.

Honors

State honors

Hungary:

Grand Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit (2025)

Greece:

Grand Cross of the Order of the Phoenix

Poland:

1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland

Russia:

Order of Honour

South Korea:

Blue Dragon (Cheongnyong) of the Order of Sports Merit

Tunisia:

Grand Cordon of the National Order of Merit (2016)

Ukraine:

5th Class of the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise

4th Class of the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise

Japan:

Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (2025)

Honorary doctorates

Spain: Doctorate honoris causa from the Universidad Católica de Murcia.

Japan: Honorary Doctorate from the University of Tsukuba.

Awards

Seoul Peace Prize from the Republic of Korea

2025: Gold Olympic Order