DPA/Buenos Aires


IOC president Jacques Rogge approaches his exit from the job he has held for 12 years with few regrets and a generally good feeling.
“I’m going without any nostalgia. I’m not looking at the past, I’m looking at my life afterwards,” he said yesterday.
Besides, he added, he will remain involved with events at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as an honorary member and plans to attend the Games in the future too. “It’s not farewell, and it’s not adios, as they say in Spanish,” he said.
Rogge mentioned lack of sleep as a major negative point of his time in office, along with the need to remain diplomatic and restrained in his public comments.
And he is satisfied with his performance. “I did my duty, I did what I had to do. If it has benefited the International Olympic Committee, I’m happy, but don’t look at me as a miracle doctor,” he stressed.
“Have I enjoyed it? Not always. Was it exciting? Definitely,” he laughed.
Rogge declined to comment on bids to host the 2020 Olympics, for which Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid are currently competing, and also on the six candidates who seek to succeed him on the job from Tuesday.
The three bidding cities are in a position to stage a good Games, and the six candidates for the presidency are solid options too, he said, adding that his successor will face similar problems to the ones he and his predecessor Juan Antonio Samaranch (1980-2001) faced during their terms.
“I think it’s going to be the same challenges that Samaranch had, that I had and that my successor will have. It’s not easy to organise a good Games,” he said. “I think that the challenges will not differ very much.”
Rogge noted that the IOC has made progress in the fight against doping (“doping is far more difficult today than it was 12 years ago”) and has sailed the troubled waters of international politics with grace.
“We have clearly on various occasions expressed our view on situations and countries, but we are restricted,” he said. “We are staging the games in a sovereign state, and the IOC cannot be expected to have an influence in the sovereign affairs of a country.”
Rogge noted that the challenge ahead for the Olympic Movement is to convince the population of host countries that the Games are “a win-win situation”.
“The challenge for the sports movement is to clearly indicate and prove that there is a good legacy after staging such events,” he said. “But it will be our responsibility.”