He’s a Rock-Solid Candidate

Jacques Rogge was strolling along the cobblestones in this old and gracious town, playing tour guide as he relayed the history of an old church belfry, of the canals crisscrossing the streets, of his grandfather the farmer and his dad the electric company man.

Ambling in no particular hurry through the town’s main square, Rogge kicked the cobblestones, smiled and said with the comfortable sigh of a man who is European to his soul, “When I’m away for more than a month, I miss my old stones.”

To gain a peek into Rogge’s European soul is to know why he has long been considered the odds-on favorite to succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch when the International Olympic Committee selects a new president July 16.

The IOC is, and always has been, an institution shaped by European experience and values. Even now, 57 of the 122 members are European. In numbers alone, that figures to give Rogge a huge advantage in amassing the majority vote needed to prevail.

But to reckon that being European will be enough underestimates the many qualities that Rogge, an orthopedic surgeon, brings to the equation. He is known for a smooth diplomatic style, nimble intellect and gentle sense of humor.

The “most important thing” about running a successful campaign for IOC president, he said in one of a series of interviews, “will be to make no mistake.”

How to avoid such a mistake? He laughed. “If everyone knew what the mistake would be, they wouldn’t make it.”

Rogge enjoys a reputation as Mr. Clean, untouched by the Salt Lake City corruption scandal in 1999, and as he notes, “I have never been to any candidate cities in my life.”

An Olympic sailor in three Olympic Games and an IOC member since 1991, Rogge has been on its ruling executive board since 1998. He played a high-profile role as coordinator of the successful Sydney Games. He is assigned to the same role for the delay-plagued Athens Olympics in 2004.

Asked if the situation in Athens will affect his presidential candidacy, he said, “The Games in Athens will be held in 2004 and not before and will be judged in 2004, not before.”

Rogge, 59, is inevitably polite and modest. Friends say it’s difficult to remember when he was angry in public. He speaks five languages--a major selling point within the multicultural IOC.

Asked to identify the toughest problem facing the IOC in the coming years, he says, “The toughest thing will be doping, absolutely.”

He also says the Games should be downsized--that they’re on the verge of becoming so big and expensive that only the biggest cities and wealthiest nations can afford to stage them.

But election to an IOC office is traditionally not about issues. It’s typically about personality, and Rogge’s view is that on July 16, “People will vote in terms of whether they have more confidence in Person A or Person B, that’s all.”

It’s Rogge’s position that the five candidates in the race offer only minor semantic differences in their visions for the IOC--even though Kim Un Yong of South Korea, for instance, wants to bring back IOC member visits to cities bidding for the Games and Rogge’s program says not a word about the issue.

Rogge takes a bigger-picture view, saying of the five candidates, “We all recognize we have to protect the essence of the IOC, implement changes that are needed, fine-tune policies. I don’t see any differences.”

His take on the reforms enacted in the wake of the 1999 scandal is that they should be reviewed regularly, “from A to Zed,” he says, using a common European form for the letter Z, “to see if they are effective, whether they should be amended or transformed.”

Rogge’s supporters point to the way he finesses such potentially divisive issues as proof of his suitability for the IOC’s top job. Those who prefer one of the other candidates say such remarks are evidence that he doesn’t like to make hard decisions.

Rogge finds such criticism absurd.

“Come on,” he said. “I’m in surgery. I make difficult decisions on a day-to-day basis, many times every time. What I do is a matter of great responsibility that will affect people’s happiness and in some cases their life.

“Frankly speaking, taking decisions on a TV contract or distribution of money or whatever you want, that’s not a problem.”

He added, “The thing is, also in sport, I have taken a lot of decisions. It’s probably my style of taking decisions without bloodshed and without offending people and without opening my big mouth. . . .

“Most of all, I don’t want opponents to lose face. No bloodshed. I want to keep contact with people for decisions to be taken in the future.”

This is Samaranch’s style as well, and some IOC insiders predict that Rogge is the candidate most likely to offer a continuation of the Samaranch years. Those who favor one of the other candidates wonder if the European lobby isn’t pushing Rogge just a bit too hard--intimating that Samaranch would be readily at hand for a Rogge presidency to rely on.

“I don’t see myself as a continuation of Samaranch. Absolutely not,” Rogge said. “Even if both of us, we have diplomatic skills, we’re different. I’m saying this with great respect for what he has done. but I’m different.”

He said of his candidacy, “I think reasonably what I hear is encouraging, but I could be a loser. I am very humble and very modest in the fact that what you hear is one thing, what’s reality could be another thing. Let’s wait and see.”

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Rogge Facts

* Country: Belgium.

* Age: 59.

* IOC member: Since 1991.

* Career: Orthopedic surgeon; former sports medicine lecturer, University Libre, Brussels and University of Ghent.

* Sports career: Competed in yachting in the Mexico City Games in 1968, Munich in 1972 and Montreal in 1976 and was a 16-time Belgian champion; former member of the Belgian national rugby team.

* IOC highlight: Member of the executive board since 1998.