Finale in the IOC race: Samaranch jr. Runs in the lead

It rained on the ruins of the ancient Olympics without any ceasing, but Juan Antonio Samaranch Junior had the sun in its heart. He wore her from one ear to another. With a wide smile, the Spaniard entered the tent, which was set up to the members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to protect them from wet. Thumbs up, shaking hands – with Klaus Schormann, 78 years, the chief of the modern fifthrowers, whose vice was Samaranch, with Hassan Moustafa, 80 years, nickname Pharao, President of the International Handball Association.

Another hand kiss, smile, smile, smile for the cameras. Before Samaranch took a seat among the IOC members, he joked extensively with Feisal Al Hussein, the Jordanian prince, who also wants to become IOC president like him. What a difference to Sebastian Coe, for example, who grazed the rain from the suit, perceived Samaranch's entrance with a side view and took a seat without a detour.

The IOC holds its session, which culminates in the election on Thursday afternoon, in a holiday department on the Ionic Sea, but gives the event the local brand of the ancient Olympics, where it was opened on Tuesday. The company outing that was supposed to lead to the ruins of antiquity had been redirected to the site of the International Olympic Academy.

Thomas Bach, the outgoing IOC President, referred to Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the IOC, whose heart is buried a few hundred meters from the sports field on which the tent was set. “He has a quote for almost every opportunity,” Bach said about Coubertin on Monday. So: “The Olympic Games are a pilgrimage to the past and a proof of trust in the future.”

That's what Greece is about: the proof of trust. Who gets the vote of the IOC members for Bach's succession? There are three favorites. Samaranch, Coe, Kirsty Coventry. In the sunny appearance of the Spaniard, was the anticipation of the majority of votes in the decisive ballot? Samaranch can count on the support of the IOC members from most international associations. Unlike Coe, the President of World Athletics, the Athletics Association. Coe had announced a year ago that Olympic champions in athletics pay $ 50,000 prize money. The fact that he did nothing in the afternoon after he hadn't said anything about it after the members of the Olympic Summer Sports Associations in a meeting in Birmingham on the morning of the same day.

Samaranch, since 2001 IOC member, since the session of Moscow, in which his father's 21-year presidency ended, knows that the support from this circle is not enough-even if it increases if, for example, David Lappartant, the President of the International Cycling Association as a candidate leaves the election. During the lunch break on Wednesday, the Frenchman – of course – reaches for a comparison from his sport: the race is quick, it is not at the front, but is well positioned among the pursuers.

To stay in the picture: Samaranch tries to get through the ripper's lead. “All members have something exceptionally valuable,” he says on Wednesday: “Your voice in a secret choice. Everyone has the complete independence to decide whatever we think is better.” The words bear a clear message in the power structure of the IOC: thinks independently, acts independently. He will advertise votes until 3 p.m. 59 and 59 seconds on Thursday (local time), said Samaranch. For comparison: Coe answered the question of how he felt: “I'm still there.” And had a word to the lunch without any further word.

At least as clear as Samaranch's regular electorate is Thomas Bach's preference for the only woman in the circle: Kirsty Coventry, Zimbabwes Minister of Sports. The Olympic champion in swimming also had a comparison from her own experience in a floor on Wednesday. The competition spirit now begins: “The whole adrenaline on the home stretch. Stay concentrated. I stay on my train.” Did she drive through the contracts that Bach signed in the weeks before the session, most recently the three billion dollar extension with comcast NBCuniversal up to and including the summer games 2036?

When asked by the FAZ, whether the influence had the choice, Bach said on Monday: “I don't think. I don't know how.” Samaranch, banker by profession, had announced that it would set up an Olympic investment fund with a private equity company to generate income. Michael Mronz, German IOC member since 2023, edited the financial independence of the IOC, which is strengthened by the degrees. An advantage to “secure and demand autonomy”. He did not formulate an advantage for Coventry, which has no financial policy expertise.

On Wednesday, Bach recognized the Paris 2024 games as a “culmination” of his agenda. Paris should stand for everything he was up to as an IOC president. Bach spoke of his doubts before each edition of Olympic Games, he spoke of loneliness in the conversations at the highest political level, the content of which he had to keep to himself. And in addition to Paris, he spoke of the “Together” expansion, which he had set in Tokyo at the end of the Olympic motto “Faster, higher, stronger”. “We did it together,” said Bach. In the sentimental memory, was an appeal to the Olympic Corps spirit?

On Wednesday afternoon, Bach is awarded the lifelong IOC Honorary Presidency. Now the moment has come for the homage. What with all the praise, all the thanks, sometimes performed for minutes, voice? “We don't have to be made up again”, the Austrian Karl Stoss paraphrased Donald Trump, “we are big. We need a leader like her,” he addresses Bach. Or a leader. It sounds like an election recommendation for Coventry. In his words of thanks, Bach promises to be accessible to the next president at any time of the day and night. The camera swing, which captures Juan Antonio Samaranch during the 20 speech, shows the Spaniard as economically into the round look like Coe on him in the Olympics the day before.

However, two votes are Samaranch junior. They come from the Chinese Samaranch Foundation. He founded it after the death of his father in 2010. Samaranch Senior had supported China's promotion to sports world power. Are the voices of the two Chinese IOC members who occupy the Foundation's supervisory board with Samaranch Junior, not a distortion of competition? A reporter asks on Wednesday. Answer: “This is compliant, I wish that is an advantage, but that's not it.” Candidate Samaranch also explains the idea of ​​independent thinking and self -employed action idiosyncratically and selfish.