Outgoing IOC President Thomas Bach on Trump, trans athletes, Putin and the role of the Olympics in a divided world

Despite a tenure in which keeping the Olympics and politics separate has at times been difficult, Thomas Bach has a clear message for his successors during an uncertain time: keep the Olympics out of it.

Despite a tenure in which keeping the Olympics and politics separate has at times been difficult – and in which he’s had to deal with some of the world’s most controversial leaders – Thomas Bach has a clear message for his successors during an uncertain time: make sure the Games stay out of it. For 12 years, Bach has overseen one of the most extraordinary periods in the history of the Olympic movement – a global pandemic with two Games behind closed doors, a state-sponsored Russian doping scandal and a legacy of era-defining change within his organization. That period also saw the Games being hosted in Russia, Brazil, South Korea, China and France amid elections, wars in Europe and the Middle East, and cross-border posturing on the Korean Peninsula. As he prepares to hand over the baton to his successor, Bach does so with an unwavering faith in the power of unity and strict neutrality, and a confidence that the Olympics currently face no “existential challenge or problem.” “Sport has to be politically neutral, otherwise we cannot accomplish our mission to bring the entire world together. You have seen how perfectly it worked in Paris, where we had the athletes from all the territories of the 206 National Olympic Committees, plus the Refugee Olympic Team, coming together, living together in the Olympic Village, living peacefully together,” he told CNN Sports’ Amanda Davies in an exclusive interview ahead of the selection of his successor. “You had athletes from Russia, from Ukraine, you had athletes from Palestine, you had athletes from Israel, you had athletes from Yemen … The far too many wars and crises in this world coming together, living together, making a call for peace together and competing with each other peacefully and following the rules without any incident.” Bach’s message will face a stern test as the Summer Games prepare to head to Los Angeles in 2028. They do so against the backdrop of an increasingly uncertain and fractured political and societal landscape in the United States, which is going through a time of deep political divide – one from which the Olympics have not been immune.