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Wasting no time Day after election, Rogge goes right to work
MOSCOW (AP) -- Jacques Rogge is a man in a hurry. The morning after his election as IOC president, he got straight down to business, meeting with Olympic sponsors and broadcasters, huddling with Salt City's organizing chief and making plans for his first official visit to the United States. With Juan Antonio Samaranch headed into retirement after 21 years in office, Rogge is wasting no time in asserting his stamp on the most influential post in the world of sport and providing a more human face to the IOC's scandal-scarred elitist image. Rogge, a 59-year-old Belgian, rejects any trappings of power or pretense: no ostentatious displays, lavish excess or self-serving pomp. Instead of "Mr. President," or "His Excellency," he's happy to be called Jacques. "I'm the same man," Rogge said Tuesday as he strode toward a hotel elevator. "My life is going to be different now, but I will be the same man." Rogge, a former three-time Olympian in sailing and orthopedic surgeon by profession, met with Salt Lake organizer Mitt Romney and followed up on his offer to stay in the athletes' village during next February's Winter Games. "He told me I'll get the room," Rogge said. "We just want normal working conditions like we had in Sydney. We don't need luxury. I am a sober man and I want the IOC to reflect that." Said Romney: "This guy is just what the doctor ordered." Rogge's election capped a landmark session of the International Olympic Committee, a meeting which began with the vote to award the 2008 Summer Games to Beijing. Both decisions were heavily driven by political factors. Giving the Olympics to China for the first time, despite concerns over human rights, was seen as a catalyst for opening the world's most populous country. The election of Rogge -- who will preside over the Beijing Games -- was an affirmation of the IOC's commitment to reform in the wake of the Salt Lake bid scandal. Beijing and Rogge were both favorites and both won by overwhelming margins. Despite attractive bids, Toronto and Paris failed to mount a serious challenge to the Beijing juggernaut. Rogge's European supporters worked hard to consolidate his votes and stop South Korea's Kim Un-yong or Canada's Dick Pound from being a threat. Rogge promises to offer a different leadership style. While Samaranch was autocratic, Rogge is a troubleshooter who adopts a collegial approach and excels as a conciliator, consensus-builder and unifier. There have been suggestions that Rogge is Samaranch's hand-picked successor and will be manipulated by the former president. Samaranch was made honorary life president and is allowed to continue to attend executive board meetings. "Let me be very clear," Rogge said. "I'm absolutely sure there will be no interference whatsoever." Johann Olav Koss, the former Norwegian speedskater who now sits on the IOC, said he believes Rogge will be his own man. "He is the president now," he said. "We don't need a puppet. We need a president." Befitting that role, Rogge held an hour-long meeting Tuesday morning with the global sponsors and television networks -- the moguls who bankroll the Olympics and have guaranteed the IOC's financial security through 2012. "We were very impressed with his opinions, his willingness to listen and his commitment to the value of sport," said Scott McCune, a vice president and director of Coca-Cola. The meeting also dealt with Pound, who has led the IOC's television and sponsorship negotiations since the 1980s. Pound resigned his IOC committee roles after his election defeat. Rogge asked Pound to reconsider. Pound said he would give an answer later this summer. "We have great respect for Dick Pound and the work he's done for the Olympic movement and we're hopeful that he will stay actively involved," McCune said. Rogge plans to go to the World Athletics Championships in Edmonton early next month, convening a first brief meeting of his executive board there. He said he will visit Salt Lake City on Aug. 6 or 7 and then head to Colorado Springs for meetings with the U.S. Olympic Committee. While Samaranch never went to Salt Lake after the scandal broke in late 1998 and the executive board has declined to meet there, Rogge considers it a matter of urgency to travel to Utah for the first time. "It's my duty to go there," he said. "There's only seven months' time until the games are opened. That's the very first priority of the IOC." Rogge will quit his medical practice in Ghent, Belgium, and leave his home in Deinze to move to Lausanne, Switzerland, in August. Like Samaranch, he'll live and work there full-time and draw no salary. Among the priorities of Rogge's presidency: downsizing the Olympics, not by reducing the number of sports (28) or athletes (10,000), but by cutting down on accreditations and technology and construction costs. Rogge also stresses the need to protect the credibility of sport by fighting the use of performance enhancing drugs. "If tomorrow mothers do not want to send their young children to sports clubs because they are afraid of drugs, it could be the end of sport," he said. "We need to keep it clean, we need to keep it credible." Clean and credible -- two words that some would say describe Rogge perfectly.
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