Today's conference call with Thomas Bach following confirmation that the 59-year-old German intends to submit his candidature for the most powerful job in world sport, though hardly a surprise, contained much food for thought.

For one thing, the Olympic fencing gold medallist said that, if elected, "I would be a volunteer".

This is even though the man he aspires to succeed, Jacques Rogge, the current International Olympic Committee (IOC) President, recently told a German newspaper that he thought the Presidency should in future be a paid position.

Second, Bach told us that the coming race would not be like a political campaign.


"IOC members know all the candidates very well," he explained.

"They know what they are standing for.

"They know what they have contributed in the past.

"And they know what they think.

"And the candidates know the members.

"So it is very much about convincing the individual members rather than the worldwide public at large."

It is a fair point.

Nevertheless, this is a Movement with lofty aims.


In the words of the Olympic Charter, Olympism seeks to "create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles".

It nowadays generates billions of dollars in broadcasting and sponsorship revenues over the four-year Olympic cycle to back this philosophy up.

It is very much to be hoped that the electoral campaign is waged in forums open enough to enable interested members of the public to learn exactly what the leading contenders stand for.

After 119 years, the IOC is too big a fish for its infrequent leadership campaigns to be conducted entirely in whispered conversations along hidden corridors.

Fortunately, I doubt this will be how things pan out; it could even be argued that the conference call was a tacit acknowledgement of this.

Third, we were told that the headline or motto of the Bach campaign would be "unity in diversity".

This was potentially the most interesting disclosure of all since it happens to be the title of a speech Bach gave to the Olympic Congress in 2009.

Now this was under the theme, "the structure of the Olympic Movement", so it would be unfair to expect it to go over all the ground to be covered in the forthcoming campaign.

It is, moreover, a densely-argued 10-page text which I cannot do justice to here, so I would encourage those interested to look it up.

Having said that, this is what I took from it.

Bach, like Sebastian Coe, was an athlete in 1980.


Unlike Coe, however, he represented a country - West Germany - that decided not to send a team to Moscow.

He describes himself in the speech as "a victim" of the partial boycott of those Games.

It is scarcely surprising in such circumstances that Bach should set great store by sport's autonomy.

And the need to protect this autonomy is one of the reasons why unity is key, since, he argues, "if attacks on the autonomy of sport create differences of opinion within sport, these are very quickly exploited by politicians in accordance with the old Roman rule: 'divide et impera' (divide and rule)".

If this were a public election, Bach - who also told us that he was about to head for Rome to represent the IOC President at an event - might be vulnerable to the counter-argument that political boycotts are ancient history.

IOC members, though, may have altogether different views on the subject.


In his speech, Bach alluded to "various, sometimes subtle, even seductive, yet often very direct, brutal attacks on this autonomy," telling his audience: "You will hear about Governments' attempts to prevent elections, to appoint Presidents of sports organisations themselves and to manipulate voting".

If political boycotts are ancient history, then attempts to use sport as a political tool, it seems, are not.

The other side of this coin is that sport has a responsibility to show itself worthy of this autonomy; Bach is not naïve enough to resort to the old argument that sport and politics don't, and shouldn't, mix.

And this means good governance - an area I would expect to come in for much detailed attention, throughout the Movement, if Bach does emerge victorious in Buenos Aires in September.

So there we are: the opening shot has been fired; the man widely viewed as the frontrunner is out of the blocks.

What we need to know now is how many rivals will confront him.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.