International Olympic Committee (or IOC according to AbbreviationFinder) is a body in charge of coordinating the activities of the Olympic Movement, supervising and administering everything concerning the Olympic Games, as well as selecting the cities that will host these games every 4 years. made up of 205 National Olympic Committees.
Functions of the IOC
The IOC coordinates the activities of the Olympic Movement. He is also in charge of supervising and managing everything concerning the Olympic Games. It owns all the rights associated with the Olympic symbols, the flag, anthem, motto, oath and the games. It controls the broadcasting rights of the games, advertising and other activities in accordance with the Olympic Charter. It is also the international body in charge of organizing and selecting the cities that will host the Olympic Games every 4 years.
The Olympics begin with the lighting of the Olympic Flame and at that time it is the beginning of the Olympiad that will end with the lighting of the next one at 4 years of age.
IOC Presidents
- Demetrius Vikelas (Syros, 1835.1908) Greece
President from 1894 to 1896. The Greek Vikélas was a member of the Panhellenic club of Athens. He represented his country at the congress held in Paris in 1894, which gave rise to the modern Olympic movement. After supporting the candidacy of Athens to organize the first Modern Olympic Games in 1896, Vikélas was appointed first president of the International Olympic Committee by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who had stipulated that the president should come from the country where the following games would be held.. After the first games were over, he devoted himself to promoting general education in Greece, although he remained an active member of the Olympic movement until his death.
- Pierre de Coubertin (-1935) France
President from 1896 to 1925.
- Henri de Baillet-Latour, Belgium
President from 1925 to 1942. Count Henri de Baillet-Latour was elected to the IOC in 1903 and, a year later, founded the Belgian Olympic Committee. After World War I, he contributed to the celebration of the games of the VII Olympiad in Antwerp. Despite the fact that there was only one year to organize the event and that Belgium had been badly affected by the war, it was this organizational capacity that led the IOC members to elect him president, after the resignation of Pierre de Coubertin in 1925. She opposed the introduction of women’s athletics events in 1928.
- Sigfrid Estrom, Sweden
President from 1946 to 1952. He was vice president of the Organizing Committee of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm and led the Swedish delegation in the 1908, 1920, 1924, 1928, 1932 and 1936 editions. In the 1912 games he created the International Amateur Athletics Federation, of which he was the first president from 1913 to 1946. In 1920 he became a member of the IOC and a year later, he was elected a member of the executive committee, before taking office. as vice president between 1931 and 1946. During World War II, he kept in touch with members of the IOC and, in 1945, organized the first postwar executive commission meeting. At the first meeting of the IOC after the war, held in 1946 in Lausanne, he was elected president of the organization.
- Avery Brundage, (-1975) United States
President from 1952 to 1972. He represented the United States in the Athletics competition of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm and was a three-time national amateur champion of the all-round specialty, similar to the decathlon. After retiring from competition, he devoted himself to sports administration and was president of the American Amateur Athletics Union (seven terms) and president of the American Olympic Committee for 25 years. He became a member of the IOC in 1936, a vice president in 1945 and a president in 1952. During his 20 years in command of the IOC, he was widely criticized for his advocacy of amateur sport.
- Lord Killanin Ireland
President from 1972 to 1980. A great sports fan, he had a highly varied professional career as a journalist, film producer and business leader. He chaired the Irish Olympic Committee from 1950 to 1972, was elected to the IOC in 1952 and, in 1968, became Vice President. He guided the Olympic movement through a difficult period in its history, sparked by changes in admission rules and boycotts of the 1976 and 1980 games.
- Juan Antonio Samaranch Spain
President from 1980 to 2001. During his tenure, the participation of professional athletes was allowed, which stimulated an increase in the level of competition in all participating countries. Another of his greatest achievements was to bring the Olympic movement out of the bankruptcy that it found itself in at the end of the 1970s, when cities were beginning to seriously consider the profitability of a bid.
- Jacques Rogge , Belgium
President from 2001 to 2013
- Thomas Bach, Germany
President from 2013 to 2021, winner of a team foil gold medal at the Montreal Olympics, 1976. First Olympic Gold Medalist to Become IOC President