IOC president Thomas Bach says he will leave office next year and Olympics needs fresh leader

Thomas Bach

IOC president Thomas Bach on Saturday said he will leave office next year and that the Olympics is “best served with a change in leadership.”

Bach has led the International Olympic Committee since September 2013 and his 12-year limit was due to expire next year — but the members asked him last year to consider changing IOC rules to let him remain in office.

The 70-year-old Bach said the IOC needed a new leader who could steer the Olympic movement through an increasingly digital and political world.

“New times are calling for new leaders,” Bach told the IOC membership in Paris.