Jacques Rogge
- Died:
- August 29, 2021 (aged 79)
Jacques Rogge (born May 2, 1942, Ghent, Belgium—died August 29, 2021) was a Belgian athlete and physician who served as president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 2001 to 2013.
Rogge studied sports medicine and earned his medical degree in Great Britain before returning to Belgium to work as an orthopedic surgeon in Deinze. He also lectured at Free University in Brussels and at the University of Ghent. A successful athlete, he was a 16-time national champion in rugby and a one-time yachting world champion. He also competed in the Finn class of sailing at the Summer Games in 1968, 1972, and 1976.
After retiring from competition, Rogge became involved with the Belgian Olympic Committee, and from 1989 to 1992 he served as its president. In 1989 he also became president of the European Olympic Committee, and in 1991 he joined the IOC; he became a member of various IOC commissions, including the medical committee, and in 1998 he joined the IOC executive board. Rogge was instrumental in coordinating the successful 2000 Summer Games in Sydney and in helping to formulate the 2004 Games in Athens. In July 2001 Rogge became president of the IOC, succeeding Juan António Samaranch of Spain. Rogge was elected in the hope that he would clear away the aura of scandal that had surrounded the IOC in recent years, particularly the high-profile resignations and felony charges of bribery that grew out of the successful bid by Salt Lake City, Utah, for the 2002 Winter Games. The new IOC president—the eighth in the 107-year history of the organization—left his medical practice and took up residence in Lausanne, Switzerland, home to the IOC headquarters.
In the wake of the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001, Rogge was granted emergency powers to cancel the Games without the vote of the full committee. Stating that he had no intention of exercising such authority, he was credited with maintaining calm while tightening security at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002. He also became the first IOC president to lodge in the Olympic Village dormitories rather than in a hotel. An ongoing issue for the IOC was drug use by Olympians, and Rogge, who had served on the board of the World Anti-Doping Agency, increased efforts to eliminate banned substances from the Games, especially after Marion Jones, a five-time medalist at the 2000 Olympics, admitted in 2007 to using steroids.
In an effort to keep the Olympics relevant to a younger generation, Rogge presided over the inclusion of youth-focused sports, including snowboarding, which made its Olympic debut at the 2006 Turin Games, and BMX cycling, which debuted at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. In 2007 he added the Youth Olympics to the Olympic calendar; the inaugural event was held in Singapore in 2010.