The opening salvo by author David Miller, a sports journalist and Olympic historian who first covered the Olympics of Tokyo 1964, predicted a grim scenario for the future of international sport.

"The empire lust of a Russian mass murderer and Chinese totalitarian dictator portends a long term east west division of the globe and dissolution of Olympic ideology," Miller wrote.

His latest Olympic themed offering presents a remarkable chronicle of the nine years of Olympic sport since Bach became International Olympic Committee (IOC) President.

World Athletics chief Seb Coe, by coincidence an earlier subject of Miller’s, contributed the foreword.

"The world of sport has been well served by Thomas’s focus on protecting and promoting the Olympic Movement for the next century and future generations," Coe wrote.

The book revealed a change of leadership style at the IOC which has seen the Executive Board assume greater prominence amid a greater personal influence from Bach.

"Thomas Bach is by no means uncomfortable in administration of a global body in which his word is the predominantly controlling force," Miller asserted.

"Important committee decisions should always be by an uneven number, and three is too many," previous IOC President Lord Killanin had told the author, probably only half in jest.

The book reveals how Bach’s experiences as a competitor informed his own climb to the top as an administrator.

In 1980, United States President Jimmy Carter demanded a boycott of the Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Bach, 1976 gold medallist in team foil, was denied the chance to take part because the West German Government followed Washington’s lead.

"Bach was prominent among German athletes antagonised by a meaningless gesture-principle in which they played no active part," Miller wrote.

In 1981, Bach was one of the athletes chosen to participate at the IOC Congress in the German spa town Baden-Baden.

For Miller this was a "logical" choice.

Bach soon ascended the hierarchy of German sports administration and succeeded in bringing together a German Olympic Sports Confederation.

In 1991, he was co-opted as an IOC member.

By 2013, the top job had come his way after a convincing victory at the IOC Session in Buenos Aires which also installed Tokyo as the host city for 2020.

These were moments which now seem of another world before COVID-19.

Bach’s early years encompassed five Olympic celebrations inherited from decisions made before he became leader.

The first of these were the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia acclaimed at the time, but soon to be shrouded in something rather more sinister.

The fallout of revelations about institutionalised doping in Sochi had consequences for the next decade.

Before the revelations, Bach had courted Putin.

"Bach well recognised where the IOC needed friends but not soon enough a veiled evil," Miller observed.

He described the IOC President as "innocently and unwittingly engaging Putin."

A year after Sochi, the destiny of the 2022 Winter Olympics was decided.

At the time of the vote in 2015, Beijing and the Kazakh city of Almaty were the only candidates after an attractive Norwegian bid featuring Oslo and Lillehammer had been withdrawn.

Beijing won, almost guaranteeing that there would be a storm of protest as the Games approached.

The Rio 2016 Olympics brought very different problems to the forefront, not least the need for security in terms of future hosts.

Bach had already demonstrated awareness of this problem in his Agenda 2020, a strategic document set before the full membership of the IOC and approved at a special Session in Monaco.

Potential bidding cities were to be invited "to present an Olympic project that best matches their sports, economic, social and environmental long-term planning needs," the document said in one of its main recommendations.

Very soon, this was manifested in the joint award of the 2024 Olympics to Paris and 2028 to Los Angeles.

The unusual dual award was described as a "win-win" for both cities.

Although Milan and Cortina D'Ampezzo defeated Stockholm in a conventional contest for the 2026 Winter Olympics and other cities began to express an interest in the Summer Games of 2032, a change of direction soon became clear.

"The story of Brisbane’s widely rumoured incubation as likely hosts for 2032 was dramatically leaked by insidethegames, the comprehensive website launched by Duncan Mackay," Miller wrote.

As predicted by insidethegames, the decision was formally rubber stamped at the IOC Session in Tokyo before the Olympics.

In the book, Miller assesses how Tokyo and Beijing took very different approaches to achieve a similar objective.

There were no spectators in Tokyo, save for team members and officials, yet even so, Miller insists they "achieved a spontaneous release of emotional happiness," prompting "gentle heartfelt words" from Bach at the end.

Although a limited number of spectators were present in Beijing, the 2022 Winter Olympics were conducted in an even more restrictive "closed loop" system.

Miller described this as "China’s opportunistic exploitation of the COVID pandemic to suffocate any contact between visiting spectators, forbidden or competing athletes and the media."

For Miller, the "malevolent focus" of Beijing was the revelation of a positive test by 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva months before the Games.

When, after days of uncertainty, she was permitted to compete in the individual competition, an error meant she missed out on a medal.

Bach, in Miller's words "sensitive to the emotional trauma suffered by a prodigy," described the reaction to her mistake from her entourage as "chilling."

In the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, Bach later admitted to a growing hostility from Moscow in the wake of IOC sanctions.

This book was originally planned as an additional chapter to Olympic Guardians, Miller's earlier work which was a series of short chapters on each of Bach's predecessors as IOC President.

"When the extent of Bach's reformation became apparent, an individual assessment seemed obvious," Miller explained.

Towards the end, there are revealing words from Bach himself.

"After the tribulations we experienced in Rio, I had supposed that from there on, the task would become easier," Bach confided.

A vain hope indeed.

The toll that keeping the Flame alive had taken was betrayed in photographs. They portray a careworn IOC President.

Without him though, Miller seems certain that both Games would have been jeopardised. 

"Bach sustained IOC equilibrium through repeated crises," was the author's verdict.

This thought provoking book will make sure Bach's contribution is recorded, even if not universally applauded.