Jacques Rogge was a man of elegance and poise.

He stayed straight, the dark blue suit with the embroidered Olympic rings on the jacket always fit perfectly.

With great precision, perfect languages ​​and masterful self-control, he led the plenary meetings of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as President.

Evi Simeoni

Sports editor.

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The signed manner in which he gave the floor to Prince Albert of Monaco, the Dutch (then still) Crown Prince Willem-Alexander or the Malaysian Prince Imran was inimitable.

Rogge never got out of hand.

Only once did he falter: after the accidental death of the Georgian tobogganist Nodar Kumaritashvili shortly before the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, he appeared at the press conference with red tears in his eyes and said: "It's hard to pull yourself together."

In 2013 Bach took over

When Rogge passed on his presidency to Thomas Bach from Tauberbischofsheim in Buenos Aires in 2013 after twelve years, he did so with sober dignity. But you could see how exhausted he was. “I see the finish line,” he said a few weeks earlier. "I hope I will achieve the goal in good shape that IOC left my successor in good condition and that I have done my duty."

At this point his body no longer seemed to want to keep up with the pace of his mind. But you saw him, now as honorary president and silent listener, sitting on the podium of the IOC general assemblies for a long time. As the IOC announced on Sunday evening, Jacques Rogge, the eighth President of the International Olympic Committee, died at the age of 79. The Olympic flag in front of the IOC headquarters in Lausanne will be hoisted at half-mast for five days in his honor.

During his tenure, Rogge was made a count by the Belgian king. He was a citizen of the world who had shaken hands with most of the mighty and the greatest charismatics of his time. And he was a sports leader who had managed to re-strengthen his organization after a deep credibility crisis. Today, given the power and splendor of his successor, his administration seems almost antiquated. Rogge suffered defeats, which he acknowledged with a frozen smile. He accepted his successes with the modesty of a grand seigneur. Eulogies were not his thing. He didn't have the patience for things like that. Rogge described himself as a matter-of-fact person who is used to not judging by feeling. "I come from a job where you have to face reality."

A seriously ill Olympia

Rogge was an orthopedic surgeon who once performed 800 operations a year.

He was a healer, a repairman, and this role fell to him as a sports official, at the latest on the day in July 2001 when the IOC members in Moscow elected him their president.

In 21 years under the Catalan Juan Antonio Samaranch, the old IOC had been transformed from an elitist debating club into a powerful money machine and was now threatened by the greed of its protagonists.