Thomas Bach re-elected IOC President for additional four years

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach has been re-elected for an additional four-year term at the 137th IOC Session.

The Olympic champion, who won gold as part of the West German foil fencing team at the Olympic Games of Montreal 1976, won re-election on Wednesday with 93 yes votes and one no out of 94 total valid votes.

President Bach was first elected IOC President in Buenos Aires in 2013 for an eight-year term. That term will end on the last day of the Tokyo 2020 Games on 8 August 2021 with his second term beginning immediately after, concluding in 2025.

"Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart for this overwhelming vote of confidence and trust," the German said following his re-election.

"For me, this is even more overwhelming considering the many reforms and the many difficult decisions we had to take which affected all of us.

"You know that this is touching me deeply. It also makes me humble. When you elected me for the first time as your President in 2013 in Buenos Aires, I said that I want to lead the IOC according to my campaign motto 'Unity in diversity' and be a President for all of you and for all our stakeholders.

"This commitment is also true for my second and last term. My door, my ears and my heart remain open for each and everyone of you. I hope that I can count on your continued dedication, support and friendship."

In his first term as IOC President, Bach initiated Olympic Agenda 2020, a set of reforms for the future of the IOC and the Olympic Movement.

Olympic Agenda 2020 was adopted in 2014 at the IOC Session in Monaco, and its Closing Report was approved by the IOC Session unanimously by a vote of 95–0 today prior to Bach's re-election.

In its place, its successor roadmap – named Olympic Agenda 2020+5 – will be discussed on Friday by the Session.

During his competitive athletic career, the IOC president won two World Championship gold medals as part of the West German foil team in addition to his Olympic gold medal – in Montreal in 1976 and Buenos Aires in 1977.

When the IOC Athletes' Commission was founded in 1981, the fencer was a founding member, and he served on the Commission until 1988. He became an IOC Member three years later and was on the IOC Executive Board from 1996 to 2013.

Prior to becoming IOC President, Bach was also IOC Vice-President from 2000 to 2004, 2006 to 2010, and 2010 to his election as President in 2013.

In his acceptance speech to the IOC Members, Bach added: "I would like to achieve ambitious goals with you also in the post-coronavirus world.

"We learned during this coronavirus crisis the hard way that we can live up to our Olympic slogan 'faster, higher, stronger', in sport and in life, only if we are working together.

"Therefore, I would like today to inspire a discussion whether we should not complement this slogan by adding after a hyphen the word 'together': 'Faster, higher, stronger – together'.

"This could be a strong commitment to our core value of solidarity and an appropriate adaption to the challenges of this new world."

As IOC President, Bach was acknowledged for his role in building peace through sport.

He received the Seoul Peace Prize last October, which he said belonged to the entire IOC and Olympic Movement. A year earlier, he was also awarded the Cem-Papandreou Peace Award, which is given to individuals and groups who have made 'an outstanding contribution to peace'.