Rogge Re-elected As IOC President
Jacques Rogge has been re-elected unopposed as president of the International Olympic Committee.
Rogge will serve his final four years, which takes him through the London 2012 Olympics, before stepping down in 2013.
The IOC session in Copenhagen confirmed Rogge’s re-election by 88 votes to one. The Belgian, 67, had taken over in 2001 from Spaniard Juan Antonio Samaranch.
Brazil’s 93-year-old IOC member Joao Havelange had asked that the vote be done simply by acclamation, but Rogge insisted on a secret ballot.
Sir Craig Reedie also became the first Briton to be elected on to the IOC’s executive board since 1961.
Meanwhile, the IOC elected Mario Pescante of Italy and Ser Miang Ng of Singapore as new vice-presidents, rejecting two other candidates – C.K. Wu of Taiwan and Samih Moudallal of Syria – who had also applied to be vice-presidents.
The Olympic body also re-elected its current 106 members.
Rogge, a former orthopaedic surgeon, made the fight against doping his top priority in his first eight-year term, and pledged to continue the efforts to stop cheaters over the next four years.
A one-time Olympic yachtsman who also represented Belgium in rugby, he has also championed the creation of the Youth Olympic Games, which will debut in Singapore next year featuring athletes aged 14 to 18.
