Jacques Rogge is a Belgian athlete and physician who was president of the International Olympic Committee from 2001 to 2013.
Rogge, of course, could use his ownhis official position to spend more time with such attractive sportsmen as Lerin Franco, but it was not in his spirit. First, he has Anne's wife, ever since he participated in the Olympics. He is already over 70, so his loyalty as husband and honorary president of the IOC has always been expressed in the care of games and his family, which also includes a pair of adult children.
Despite his age and marital status, JacquesRogge still makes efforts to associate himself with much younger athletes. At the Winter Olympics in 2002 in Salt Lake City, he became the first functionary who stopped not in a hotel, but in a room in the Olympic Village on a par with other athletes.
Rogge collected an impressive collection of works of art. According to him, here it is more abstract than romantic.
Jacques Rogge was the most important person in the sport.As president of the IOC, he was responsible for the Olympic Games, and he held this position from 2001 to 2013. The former surgeon had the necessary sports experience to match his position - Rogge participated in four Olympics and three World Championships as a yachtsman and in 10 international championships as a player of the Belgian national rugby team.
The greatest contribution of the IOC President was thethe Olympic system of important changes aimed at combating fraud on the part of athletes and their use of doping. Although no system is perfect, he showed that he is not engaged in patronage and is ready to punish everyone who violates the rules, including some of his allies. Critics may say that Jacques Rogge was too rigid in his fight against doping, but he also believed that athletes could improve and deserved a second chance. In addition, at the beginning of his term as head of the IOC, he faced a corruption and doping scandal at the Salt Lake City Olympics, which could cause irreparable damage to his case, but he coped with this difficult situation with honor.
The future president of the IOC was born in Ghent, Belgium,02.05.42. He moved to England at a young age and eventually became fluent in five languages: English, French, Spanish, German and Dutch. Also, Rogge spent a lot of time on the rugby field. Upon his return to his homeland, he continued to play and subsequently 10 times played for his country's national team.
However, this is not all that Jacques Rogge achieved.The sport in which he achieved the greatest success is yachting. He became the world champion and twice finished in the top three. Jacques Rogge performed at three Olympic Games in a row in yachting competitions - in 1968-1976.
An indelible mark on the fate of the Belgian yachtsmanleft the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. It was there that a group of Palestinians killed several Israeli athletes, and this act of terrorism was a sad event in his life.
The year 1980 marked another memorable event inlife of the Olympic functionary, this time not as tragic as in Munich. Having a sporting past, Jacques Rogge was engaged in the preparation of the national team of Belgium. Because of hostile relations between Russia and NATO, the government did not want to send a team to the Olympics in the country that occupied Afghanistan the year before, but Jacques Rogge went against his own political leadership so that his compatriots could participate in this event in spite of everything . It is obvious that the Belgian athlete possessed the skills of a born leader.
В результате событий 1980 года фокус карьеры Rogge shifted to medicine, although he did not lose sight of the scope of sports administration. Jacques received a degree in sports medicine from the University of Ghent and found work as an orthopedic surgeon. For three years he collaborated with the Belgian Olympic Committee and in 1989 was elected chairman of the European EC, which remained until 2001.
In 1991, Rogge became a member of the IOC, and in 1998became a representative of the executive board. He played a key role in the coordination of the Summer Olympics in Sydney in 2000 and helped prepare in 2004 in Athens.
In the year 2001Juan Antonio Samaranch - president of the International Olympic Committee - decided not to seek re-election to his post at the end of his term. In July of the same year, Jacques Rogge was elected instead of him, thanks to his successful Olympic experience as an athlete and official representative of this organization. He left his medical practice and moved to IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.in the US, Rogge received the authority to stop the holding of the Olympic Games without the vote of the entire committee. The President promised not to resort to these extreme measures and never did.
Soon after, during his firstOlympics in Salt Lake City, USA, in 2002 he faced a scandal that arose from the bribes that some of his fellow officials took. The eighth president in the 107-year history of the IOC has promised to clean up the ranks of the committee staff in particular and sports in general, having started a decisive fight against corruption and the use of doping.
Although Jacques Rogge displeased over hissupport of Beijing at the Olympic Games in 2008, he played an important role in making a number of changes in the way of international competitions. The IOC President reduced the number of Olympians to just over 10,000 and launched a new doping control program that tests athletes all year round, including in other countries. He even went to punish the French and Russian participants, although these countries were his main allies. This had a huge impact on the Olympic Games - many athletes, such as Marion Jones, were accused of using doping.
In an attempt to promote the Olympics amongyoung generation Rogge contributed to the inclusion of youth sports, such as snowboarding, which debuted in 2006 in Turin, or a bicycle motocross, launched in 2008 in Beijing. In 2007, he added to the calendar the Youth Olympic Games, which began to be held since 2010.
Rogge's term of office came to an end at the 125th IOC meeting in Buenos Aires. 10/10/2013 he was replaced by the representative of Germany Thomas Bach, and he became the Honorary President.
Jacques Rogge is a knight of the French orders,Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Romania, Ukraine, Austria, South Africa, Lithuania and Russia, as well as holders of honorary titles of the universities of Ghent, Leuven, Budapest and Lausanne.
