Emotional Return to Montreal for IOC President

(ATR) Thomas Bach’s first visit to Montréal since winning a fencing gold medal in 1976 becomes an emotional experience.

The IOC president is in Canada this week where he is attending the opening of the Pan American Games in Toronto. On Thursday he journeyed 540 km east to Montréal where he was the star of the day in a series of events from morning to evening.

He was handed the key to the city by Mayor Denis Coderre at a breakfast. At a lunch attended by 2,000 people, Bach spoke confidently about the reforms the IOC has undertaken with Olympic Agenda 2020 and saluted the great contribution Canada has made to the Olympic movement.

But the most poignant moments of the day came when Bach visited the venue on the University of Montréal campus where he competed in fencing as a 24-year-old for what was then West Germany.

He was cheered mightily as he arrived by hundreds of youngsters attending summer sports camps at the university. They filled the Plaza in front of the arena where both Bach and spouse Claudia chatted with the children and gave them high fives.

Inside the sports hall, photographs of Bach in competition were placed on easels in the lobby. Stepping inside the darkened arena, he said he remembered it just as he saw it in 1976. While the floor of the arena is now an ice sheet, a fencing strip was placed in just about the same location where Bach scored his gold medal.

Two young fencers from a Montréal club took to the strip for some swordplay while behind them stood a woman dressed in the awards ceremony costume from the Montréal Games. She held a bouquet similar to what Bach had been handed 39 years ago as he stood on the podium, with one of those from 1976 part of this tableau.

"I could show you the changing rooms where we left for the final full of tension. I could show you where we sat in the final between matches," he recalled of his time spent in the building.

"Many memories are coming back," he said, including a painful one. His thoughts turned to one of his teammates from 1976 who died just months ago from brain cancer. Bach called him his best friend on the team.

He mentioned it to some of his friends and colleagues who were part of the entourage, the IOC president sharing what proved to be a very personal reminiscence. Less than an hour later in another building on campus where he was awarded an honorary degree, emotion rose high as he told the audience of about 100 what had happened when he stepped inside the former fencing venue.

"In this hall, I remembered my team and my best friend," at which point his voice choked and halted and then began again, quivering with grief.

"This is the Olympic life. But it is also – – life. It is a symbol of what life can mean to all of us and it shows that in sport, in Olympic sport in particular, victory isn’t everything. It is a moment of joy. But no victory makes anybody superior to anybody else," said Bach as he recovered his composure.

"On the other hand, defeat is not the end of everything," he added.

In the next breath his good humor returned, expressing his fondness for the University of Montréal. He said a recent study from the school claiming that eating fruit at the beginning of the meal was better than at the end. Bach says he’s changed his eating habits as a result. And then he quipped: "Now I’m ready for the same researchers to say it’s good to eat chocolate ice cream".

Bach’s magnificent return to Montréal lasted into the evening, a star of the show at a street fair in the center of the city organized by the Canadian Olympic Committee. Tens of thousands filled six blocks of the downtown street that runs in front of the COC headquarters for what was called the Canadian Olympic Excellence Day. Demonstrations in Olympic sports such as boxing, gymnastics and volleyball were mingled with kiosks from sponsors such as Coca-Cola and Molson.

Behind the red ropes in front of the COC office building hundreds of VIPs mingled with Bach and COC President Marcel Aubut, the energetic impresario behind the grand event.

Bach and Aubut cut the ribbon for the new COC headquarters with the help of Québec politicians.

Chinese Olympic Committee president Liu Peng and French NOC chief Dennis Maseglia made long journeys to get to Montréal, others such as Larry Probst from the U.S. and fellow NOC leaders in the Americas flew in from Toronto on a charter flight, returning Friday for the open of the Pan American Games.

Olympians could have numbered into the hundreds given the size of the crowds. Notables included: Nadia Comenici, Bart Conner, Johan Olaf Koss, Mark Tewksbury, Steve Podborsky and Greg Louganis. And of course, a fencer from Germany named Thomas Bach.

Reported and written by Ed Hula in Montréal.

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