Who is Thomas Bach, the IOC president making the opening speech for the 2024 Olympics in Paris?

After a long wait, the day has finally arrived. This Friday, July 26, the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will take place. The event is set to push new boundaries, as it will be the first opening ceremony that will not take place in a stadium. However, it will include the traditional elements such as the entrance of the torch and the reading of the opening speech.

This is where Thomas Bach, president of the IOC comes in. He will, along with David Lappartient, will make the opening reading of Paris 2024. Bach, a former German fencer, has been one of the key players in the organisation of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Who is reading the Olympic opening speech?

Bach was born in 1953 in the German city of Wurzburg, where he became interested in a sport that is not synonymous with the country, fencing. He soon became a professional, and at the age of 20 he won a silver medal at the World Championships. In 1976 he took part in his first and only Olympic Games, and did so in style, winning gold.

Still an elite athlete, Thomas Bach began to enter the world of sports politics, and obtained his first major position in 1981, when he was appointed member of the IOC commission for new athletes. A year later, he joined the German National Olympic Committee.

How long has Thomas Bach been IOC President?

He gradually worked his way up through the ranks of various Olympic organisations. After holding positions such as the presidency of the Chamber of the International Sports Court of Appeals, the evaluation committee of Athens 2004 and being honorary president of the German Olympic Sports Confederation, in 2013 Bach ran for the position of president of the IOC (International Olympic Committee).

Bach was elected and since then he has held a position that he will have to leave in 2025, as the Olympic Charter does not allow the same person to be the IOC president for more than 12 years. However, it must be said that many times people have stood up to ask for the rules to be changed in order for Bach to keep his position.

Held on the river Seine and in the Jardins du Trocadéro - rather than at the Games’ main stadium, the Stade de France - the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony is to take place on Friday July 26, 2024. It’s scheduled to start at 1:30pm ET/10:30am PT.

In a few sports, competitions got underway in the two days before the Games’ curtain-raising event. Check out the full Olympics schedule. Just over two weeks after the opening ceremony, the 2024 Games will conclude when the closing ceremony is held at the Stade de France on Sunday August 11, at 1:30pm ET/10:30am PT. Stream the Olympics live on fuboTV.