Ex-German fencing star Thomas Bach becomes new IOC president

Former German fencing champion and the founding president of his country's Olympic Sports Confederation Thomas Bach has reportedly succeeded Belgium's Jacques Rogge as the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Bach, who is also the first Olympic champion to head the IOC, is the ninth president only in the body's 119-year history, maintaining a European stranglehold on the most powerful job in world sport.

The first German to run a major international sports body, Bach expressed his gratitude and happiness at being elected to the post, saying that he was overwhelmed by the support from all the IOC members and adding that his first task will be to prepare for a successful organisation of the controversial Sochi Winter Olympics.

According to Stuff.co.nz, the multi-lingual Bach, who won at the 1976 Montreal Games, was a firm favourite in a choice of six candidates and secured victory in the second round of voting by beating Puerto Rican Richard Carrion into second place on 29 votes.

The report further said that Bach's involvement with the Olympic movement stretches back to the milestone Olympic congress in Baden-Baden where he became a representative of the athletes, adding that he has also been at the forefront of sanctioning drugs cheats as the head of the IOC's juridical commission and its disciplinary commission.

All but one of IOC's leaders have been Europeans, with Avery Brundage of the United States the only outsider to break the monopoly, heading the IOC from 1952-1972, the report added.