Thomas Bach

Thomas Bach won an Olympic gold medal with the West German foil team at the 1976 Montréal Games. In 1973, he was runner-up with the foil team at the World Championships and earned a team gold medal in 1976, which he defended with his team one year later at Buenos Aires. In 1979 the team won the bronze medal. Nationally, Bach became German Champion in the 1978 individual foil, and won the European Cup of national champions of foil teams the same year.

Bach studied law and political sciences at the University of Würzburg. Bach made a career as an economic adviser for the German liberal party FDP, first in West Germany and after the German reunification in Dresden under the Trust Society for the settlement of East German companies. After that, he became an influential sports leader - from 1975-79 he was Fencing Athletes’ Representative in Germany, from 1981-89 IOC Athletes’ Representative, from 1982-91 he was a personal member of the West German NOC, in 1985 he became Director of International Relations at adidas, and in 1991 he was elected to the IOC.

Between 1996-2000 Bach was a member of the IOC Executive Board, and was IOC Vice-President from 2000-13. In 2002 and 2004 he was chairman of the selection committee for the respective Games in Salt Lake City and Athens. In 2006 he was Chairman of the German Olympic Sports Confederation DOSB, when the German NOC and the German Sports Federation were merged. In 2013 at the IOC session in Buenos Aires Thomas Bach was elected as the first German to become president of the IOC. He is fluent in French, English, Spanish, and of course, German.

In 1998 Bach was appointed chairman of the supervisory board of Michael Weinig AG at Tauberbischofsheim. He has been the recipient of numerous awards: 1981 – Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Merit); 1984 – Verdienstmedaille des Landes Baden-Württemberg (Order of Merit); 1993 – Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse (Federal Cross of Merit First Class); 2004 – Grosses Bundesverdienstkreuz (Grand Federal Cross of Merit); and 2008 – Honorary Citizen of Tauberbischofsheim.