The President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, extended a big thank-you for the support for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 to all the representatives of the National Olympic Committees (NOCs), who are currently taking part in person and virtually in the General Assembly of the Association of NOCs (ANOC) in Crete.
“We did it. We did it for the athletes and we did it together. And I would like to thank everyone of you for your contribution to the overwhelming success of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Without your determination, these Olympic Games would not have happened. Or at least, they would not have happened in such a successful and safe way,” President Bach said at the first in-person meeting of the ANOC General Assembly since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. Some 148 NOCs have sent representatives to the Greek island, while the others are participating virtually.
President Bach admitted: “We also had our doubts, we also had sleepless nights, we also had to adapt our strategy and actions day by day. And it weighed on all of us, and it weighed on me. But we could not share all the doubts and the questions, we could not share them with you or the other stakeholders. Because the times were so uncertain. The uncertainty you could grasp in every conversation you had with someone from the Olympic Movement. We could not add fuel to this fire. This would have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This may have led the to the collapse of the Games.”
The IOC President stressed the invaluable input and the solidarity of the NOCs for the Games and said: “But in the end we were rewarded for all our efforts for overcoming all this uncertainty, because these Olympic Games were an overwhelming success in many respects.” Thomas Bach explained that the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 have shown “that we can give hope, we can give solidarity to the people. And this is what obviously the world was longing for.”
Tokyo 2020 were the most followed Olympic Games in history, preliminary figures show. Also, 93 NOCs, more than ever, won Olympic medals. “This was only possible, because of the solidarity we enjoy in the Olympic Movement,” said Thomas Bach. More than 1,800 athletes were supported by the IOC Olympic Solidarity programme in their preparation for the Games in Tokyo. Not all made it to the Games, but all got a chance to participate in a fair way. Thirty of them won a gold medal, 36 a silver medal and 47 a bronze medal. In addition, they won 185 diplomas. Thomas Bach said: “What a success story of this Olympic Solidarity. I want to thank everyone involved.”
The IOC President also reminded the NOC representatives that, for the first time, the IOC had made the anti-doping testing and sanctioning completely independent from the IOC. Testing was in the hands of the International Testing Agency (ITA) and sanctioning in the hands of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). “This proved to be a great success,” said Thomas Bach, who asked the NOCs, Continental Associations of NOCs and other event organisers to follow this example.
President Bach’s full speech can be watched here.
Looking ahead to the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, the IOC President said: “The preparations are going very well. The venues are ready. The test events are underway, and the responses we have got so far from the athletes taking part and from the NOCs are good. Everyone is excited about the quality of the venues, about the quality of the organisation. And they are also impressed by how serious our Chinese partners and friends are taking the fight against the coronavirus.”
Thomas Bach also thanked the NOCs for their support to help the evacuation of 300 members of the Olympic Community of Afghanistan, which is coordinated by the International Olympic Committee. “With the assistance of many of the International Federations and you, the NOCs, a number of humanitarian visas could be provided to members of the Olympic Community.” But the effort must continue, emphasised the IOC President: “There are still many members of the Olympic Community in Afghanistan at risk. We have to and we will continue to help them.” In order to do so, the support of governments is needed. The NOCs should continue working on obtaining such support from their governments for members of the Olympic Community from Afghanistan. There are two tasks: to get the members of the Olympic Community out of the country and to obtain humanitarian visas for them.
In addition, the IOC President addressed the post-coronavirus world in his speech. “We must strengthen our efforts to contribute as an important enabler to the United Nation’s sustainable development goals.” He introduced to the ANOC General Assembly the Olympism 365 strategy, which was adopted by the IOC Executive Board last week.
Thomas Bach also asked for the political neutrality of the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement to be respected and to defend this position: “We can only be in solidarity, if we do not only respect each other or just not sanction each other, but if we help each other. And we can only bring everybody together in this world, we can only accomplish the unifying mission of the Olympic Games, if we are not taking a political stand, for which we have no mandate. Instead, we are leading by example: we demonstrate that at the Olympic Games we are all equal, we are all living in solidarity and we want to give an example to the world, how life could look like, if we all would live together in solidarity.”
Closing his speech, Thomas Bach announced that the IOC will cut its direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2030, as part of its commitment to tackling climate change. See the full press release here. With this decision, the IOC increases its level of ambition from a previous commitment that set a 45 per cent reduction over the same time period, in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. He urged all other sports organisations to follow suit.
“Article of the IOC”