LAUSANNE / AIPS: IOC president Thomas Bach has told an online round table of AIPS Young Reporters that this year’s Olympic Games in Paris had sent out a “resounding message” of peace “despite all the wars, the conflicts, the hate, the aggression in our world.”

The Q&A session, moderated by the IOC spokesperson Mark Adams, saw Bach fielding questions from the young journalists on a range of topics around the Olympic Movement, as follows:

With the election for the presidency of the IOC scheduled to take place in March 2025, Wojciech Nowakowski from Poland asked why the candidates have to campaign behind closed doors instead of openly.

Bach: This format, which has been decided by our Ethics Commission, is the better one. It gets down to a constructive campaign and a constructive discussion, not leading to aggression.

Serjio Du Four from Trinidad and Tobago: How crucial are the Olympic scholarships as opposed to keeping the competitive nature of the Games alive? What is the objective of the Olympics? Is it to encourage more participation, or to make it the best of the best competing?

Bach: Both. We want to enable everybody to compete at the highest possible level, and with Olympic Solidarity we are doing our best to narrow the gap between the athletes from the more privileged countries and the athletes from the less privileged countries. In the Olympic Movement, there is no Global South or Global North. In the Olympic movement, we are all equal. And we could see in Paris that this Olympic Solidarity approach works. We had a record number of Olympic scholarship holders before the games – 1,560 athletes.

Finally 604 qualified for the Games and among them were 75 medal winners… We can also see a number of your NOCs winning the first ever Olympic medal and some others winning the first Olympic gold medal, altogether, 92 NOCs won medals, and many more were among the diploma holders. And for all these reasons we have even strengthened this Olympic Solidarity.

So we are increasing the Olympic Solidarity budget by 10% to USD 650 million and the Olympic scholarship budget will even be increased within this 10% by 16% so there is even more focus on the direct support of the athletes through the NOCs and we are confident that this will produce even more medals among more NOCs.

Martin Moses from Kenya: What do African countries need to do to host the Olympics in the near future?

Bach: We already have the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar 2026. If Africa wants to organise Olympic Games, the first thing is to present a proposal. We can then discuss this in our new Olympic host selection process. If an African country is showing their interest, we are at their disposal to develop, together with them, the best possible Olympic Project in accordance with their long term development plan for their country and for the youth of their country.

Hamzah Ait Massoud from Morocco asked about the possibility of a joint Olympic bid from Africa and if this supports the IOC’s goals for a sustainable and inclusive Games.

Bach: The distribution of the sites does not necessarily mean that it’s more sustainable. It can have even a counterproductive effect on sustainability, if you are considering the emissions being caused by transportation, by logistics of teams, of spectators, by tripling the number of people to be employed in organizing committees and so on. So diversification of sites is not equal to sustainability.

What is important for a sustainable organisation is first of all the number of sites rather than spreading the sites. Because construction is causing the most emissions and new construction always has to take into account the legacy of the relevant venues and stadiums.

This is why in the IOC, we are taking the approach which is the most preventive for emissions, that is to make use of existing facilities. Then if you don’t have existing facilities, go for temporary facilities, and only if temporary facilities are for one reason or another, not possible – what is, according to state of the art, technology, almost impossible – only then start to diversify.

We saw this concept in Paris, either existing or temporary facilities, resulting in a 50% reduction of the emissions compared to previous Olympic Games and at the same time, by keeping them closer together, enhancing the Olympic spirit, this feeling of togetherness and not having three different competitions in three different places.

Natalia Donets from Moldova: What would be the IOC’s position on the NOCs promoting individuals lacking integrity to senior management positions? (She refers to a situation in the NOC of Moldova).

Bach: I cannot comment on this individual case because I do not know the circumstances. I think we try to lead by example. So we have, here in the IOC, a special programme to empower Olympians to join us here in the management of the IOC and of course, being always in full alignment with the Olympic Charter and the ethical standards we are setting and also applying.

For instance, when it comes to membership, there are special background checks also on the ethical records of candidates for membership, and we can only suggest to every National Olympic Committee, every International Federation, to do the same.

Itzel Luna from Panama: How important are women in the sport movement?

Bach: They are incredibly important because no community, no society can really prosper by ignoring 50% of its intelligence. Therefore, gender equality is a no brainer, and it’s not something, you have to consider under the point of view of inclusion. It’s an issue of common sense and of good governance, if you want.

This is why, the IOC has initiated a number of empowerment programmes. And we can say that we’ve made good progress on and off the field of play. On the field of play with a gender parity by allocating the same number of quota places to male and female athletes for Paris.

When it comes to leadership positions, here in our management, majority are women. In the IOC membership we have grown from around 20% of female members to now, after Paris, 42% and in the IOC commissions, we have 50-50 gender parity when it comes to the different positions in the different commissions.

Adil Al Balushi from Oman asked about the chances of tent pegging becoming an Olympic sport in the future. He says the International Federation has already submitted a comprehensive application.

Bach: I’m not aware of the particular status of this application right now, you would have to contact our sports department, because – I really ask for your understanding – there are so many applications from so many sports around the world. I cannot follow this in all details at every stage, but in general, we have so many factors to take into account. We cannot allow the Games to grow and grow because then only few countries can host the Games.

Nadine Alsheikh Hassan from Jordan asked why the IOC did not sanction Isreal over the war in Gaza.

Bach: The Olympic Charter applies in the Olympic Movement, not political judgments or political sides. If we would apply political standards and take political sides, we would not be with athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees at the Olympic Games. We would be with around 100 National Olympic Committees because so many other NOCs or their countries are involved in armed conflicts, and wars, according to the UN statistics.

There is the one big difference to the Russian-Ukrainian situation to which you apparently refer. The reason for the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee was that they have been annexing sports organizations on the territory of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine. Neither the Israeli NOC nor the Palestinian NOC have annexed their territories like the Russian Olympic Committee did.

Rodrigo Chavez from Mexico: What do you think about the Mexican athletes that have been figures at the Olympics?

Bach: They are unique, they have the passion for sport and the Olympic spirit. I wish that the NOC and the federations continue to support them so that they have the opportunity to continue coming to the Olympic Games and win medals. In the stands when they compete I don’t hear any other thing that Mexico, Mexico, ra, ra, ra!

Camila Alves from Brazil, considering that Bach’s second and final term as IOC President expires next year, asked him what his biggest challenge was during his time in office.

Bach: I still have eight more months to go so let’s talk after that. Somebody said the other day ‘don’t put me in a museum yet’. There is still some work to do and to accomplish.

Ana Benčić from Croatia asked about the possible inclusion of beach handball in the Olympic programme. (There was a beach handball showcase during Paris 2024 Games. In 2018, the sport made its Youth Olympics debut).

Bach: We have to look at the number of venues , at the complexity of the organisation, the number of athletes, and so on. In particular, the number of athletes is crucial when it comes to team sports. It’s under consideration as far as I know but I have not seen any final proposal yet.

During the one hour session, the IOC President also responded to questions regarding the complexities of including new sports into the Olympic programme, the benefits of Artificial Intelligence in areas like talent identification and other IOC activities and initiatives. There were also questions from Lawrencia Adjei from Ghana, Rifat Al Masud from Bangladesh and Chansiline Nanze from Cameroon.

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