Lausanne (AFP)

In full preparation for the Tokyo Olympics, the International Olympic Committee should renew Wednesday for four years its president Thomas Bach, whose tumultuous mandate concentrates all the challenges of world sport.

Main object of the 137th IOC session, scheduled for Athens and finally held by videoconference, the ballot has only one unknown: only in the running, will the 67-year-old Bavarian be unanimously re-elected?

Before taking a decision from 3.30 p.m. (2.30 p.m. GMT), the 103 members of the Olympic body will examine the results of Agenda 2020, Thomas Bach's roadmap adopted after his accession to the presidency in 2013, of which "85% "proposals have been implemented.

To the credit of the former Olympic fencing champion, long-term securing of the interests of the IOC, of ​​its financial resources for the organization of the Olympic Games, threatened by the scarcity of candidatures and the explosion of costs.

In addition to the resounding agreement signed in 2014 with the American channel NBC, giving it 7.65 billion dollars (6.43 billion euros) the TV rights to the Games until 2032, the Lausanne-based body has more than doubled the revenue from its "TOP" international sponsorship program.

On the hosting side of the Games, breaking with the public competition of candidates according to an immutable schedule, Thomas Bach awarded two editions for the first time in September 2017, namely the 2024 Olympics in Paris and those of 2028 in Los Angeles.

- The shadow of Russian doping -

Favoring sites already equipped with the required facilities, the Olympic body has just granted the status of "preferred candidate" for the 2032 Olympics to the Australian city of Brisbane, although Qatar is also in the running.

And yet, even after eight years in office, Thomas Bach "the unlucky" has not yet "chaired the Games truly irreproachable", underlined Sunday the specialized site Inside The Games.

Admittedly, the chaotic preparation for the Rio Olympics in 2016, between unfinished projects and the violent destruction of favelas, rather reinforced the German in his desire to avoid pharaonic constructions in the future.

But there was added to this the incredible soap opera of Russian doping, which spattered in retrospect the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, then those in Rio and Pyeongchang in 2018, with contradictory decisions from the IOC, the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Tribunal. sports referee.

To remain "the governor of world sport", the body must now deal with a multitude of structures, notes Jean-Loup Chappelet, professor emeritus at the University of Lausanne and the specialist in Olympism.

In 2018, the IOC added its own baby, the young International Control Agency (ACI, or ITA), in charge of the anti-doping analyzes of the Olympic Games and some forty international federations, and which must retest by mid-2021 the samples of the Sochi Games.

- Beijing already contested -

Finally, while the Tokyo Olympics-2020 were to celebrate the reconstruction of Japan after the 2011 tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear accident, the Covid-19 pandemic has turned the largest peaceful gathering in the world into a health nightmare.

If the Games have been postponed by one year, from July 23 to August 8, Thomas Bach must convince each outing that they will take place, and try to instill enthusiasm with the prospect of these events under the bell. .

Even before the Tokyo meeting, the other projects of the Olympic body are already taking shape, starting with the maintenance of its "political neutrality", the improvement of its climate impact or the feminization of the bodies.

For several months, calls to boycott the Beijing Winter Games in 2022 have been increasing due to the Chinese crackdown against the Muslim minority of Uyghurs.

For the IOC, this debate coincides with an ongoing overhaul of Article 50 of the Olympic Charter, which for the time being bans any "political, religious or racial demonstration or propaganda".

For Jean-Loup Chappelet, the Olympic body could "affirm the freedom of expression of the athletes, except on the podium and the field", thus paving the way for individual protests in China.

© 2021 AFP