Belgian orthopaedic surgeon Jacques Rogge is the favourite to take over from octogenarian Juan Antonio Samaranch when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) elects its first new president for 21 years in Moscow on July 16.
The IOC's image has been badly damaged by the Salt Lake City bribery scandal in 1999 which led to 10 members leaving the organisation for breaking rules on accepting gifts from the U.S. city when it was bidding successfully for the 2002 Winter Games.
The scandal is not over yet with a court case on the affair due to begin in the U.S. on the very day the IOC elects its new boss.
For many observers, the 59-year-old Rogge, a yachtsman at the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Olympics, has the right personality to nurse the IOC back to health and cope authoritatively with its biggest danger - the threat of performance-enhancing drugs.
Used to the huge responsibility of picking up a scalpel in a hospital operating room, Rogge has a reputation for staying calm in a crisis.
Rogge, the chief coordinator of last year's successful Sydney Olympics who represented his country at rugby as well as at sailing, says he will bring consensus governance to the organisation.
"I have the greatest respect for what Samaranch has done... but Samaranch had his presidency for a period of over 21 years," Rogge said.
"He is a man of a different generation. The next president will have to work more as a uniter and a team worker, will have to empower as much as possible with his colleagues and try to involve everyone. And his mandate will be a shorter one."
CLEAN IMAGE
Rogge faces fierce competition from South Korean politician Kim Un-yong in the vote. Canadian lawyer Dick Pound, the IOC's marketing supremo, is the third heavyweight in the race that also includes American Anita DeFrantz and Hungarian Pal Schmitt.
One of the Belgian's assets is that he has a clean image as far as Salt Lake is concerned.
"I can only offer a totally clean slate. I have never been to any of the candidate cities in my life," he said. "They won't find something on the files because I have never been there...I never had the time."
Some have suggested that Rogge is Samaranch's choice of successor although nobody in the IOC is prepared to confirm it.
Like Samaranch, the Belgian, who speaks a handful of languages with ease including excellent French and English, has a reputation as a diplomat.
As coordinator for Sydney and of the problematic preparations for the 2004 Athens Olympics, he has also become known as a problem-solver.
Few people seem to have a bad word about the tall yachtsman. Even the British author Andrew Jennings, the IOC's fiercest critic, described him as a "dashing doctor".
Therein lies Rogge's biggest problem.
The surgeon needs to persuade IOC members that he is tough enough to run the organisation. Insiders say Rogge is determined in meetings despite his reputation as a consensus politician.
MEDICAL TERMS
His image is as a fixer. He often resorts to medical language to describe his tactics in sports administration, stressing that he is not afraid to attack a problem.
"As a surgeon where there is an abscess, you cut, you evacuate the pus and you let the body heal," he said. "If you have a problem you have to address it as soon as possible.
"I think I can be described as being a trouble-shooter. If there is a problem I come and try to solve it."
Rogge, who has hands-on experience of organising Olympics, is concerned about the gigantism of the Games and is unlikely to let them get any bigger. He also wants to make sure the health of athletes is not put in danger by over-training.
He says he will give up his job as a surgeon if he wins and work as a volunteer for the IOC at their headquarters in the Swiss city of Lausanne.
Asked about his image, Rogge said: "I am what I am. You say I solve problems. I solve them, I believe, with diplomacy and without bloodshed but I get to the result.
"I am a man who can say no, absolutely. I had the swinging vote in 1980 on the boycott of my (Belgian) Olympic team as chef de mission (for the Moscow Games).
"I voted no against the pressure of my government to do the boycott...The way you say 'no' can be elegant. It does not have to be brutal, rude or opening your big mouth.People should be judged by their results, not by the noise they make."
Hurt by the biggest corruption scandal in its history as well as the perennial problem of drugs, it is no surprise that the Olympic movement appears keen to call on a clean-cut doctor to run its affairs.
