IOC commemorates birth of modern era at Baden-Baden congress

By Guenter Deister Sep 28, 2011, 15:21 GMT

Baden-Baden, Germany - The Olympic Congress of 1981 marked the start of the modern era for the biggest sports event in the world and its organisation, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said on Wednesday.

'In many ways, those five days in Baden-Baden ushered in the Olympic Movement's modern era,' Rogge said at a ceremony to mark the 30th anniversary of the congress.

The meeting in the German spa saw the beginning of the end for the Olympic amateur rule, the installation of the IOC athletes' commission, an increased fight against doping, the first signs of commercialism and the first election of women into the IOC.

Rogge said that it was the first major event for Juan Antonio Samaranch, who was elected IOC president the previous year and reshaped the powerful body until 2001, when he stepped down and Rogge became his successor.

'The 1981 Congress marked the start of a revolution - the Samaranch Revolution. Baden-Baden was his first real opportunity to exert his leadership,' said Rogge.

Rogge also singled out German Thomas Bach and Briton Sebastian Coe, who then as Olympic champion fencer and middle-distance runner adressed the congress to support the athletes' commission.

Both were also present on Wednesday: Bach as host and German Olympic supremo (and IOC vice-president), Coe as chief organizer of the London 2012 Games.

Bach named the 1981 congress a 'milestone' but also of 'painful experiences' as the Soviet-led boycott of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles was already foreseeable after the United States, Germany and others boycotted Moscow 1980.

Rogge and Bach also paid tribute to Willi Daume, host and German Olympic Committee president at the time of the congress.

The statements came the after an interim report on doping in former West Germany alleged that Daume, who died in 1996, was at least aware of substance abuse in the 1970s and 1980s.

'It is a big responsibility to look into the truth. We need hard facts and no speculation,' Rogge told dpa.

While a state-run and -sponsored doping programme was uncovered in East Germany after reunification in 1990, the German Olympic Committee-commissioned study is the first to with doping practices in West Germany.

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