The In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) Pres­i­dent Thomas Bach is de­ter­mined to trans­form the IOC and the Olympic move­ment in­to a much more trans­par­ent and ac­count­able, mod­ern and pro­gres­sive or­gan­i­sa­tion.

A huge task that re­quires im­mense reser­voirs of for­ti­tude, strate­gic fo­cus and vi­sion for the Olympic move­ment that must take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion a di­verse stake­hold­er group.

As the leader of the Olympic move­ment, Pres­i­dent Bach has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of chart­ing the course and nav­i­gat­ing the IOC and the Olympic move­ment through the tu­mul­tuous wa­ters of the 21st cen­tu­ry and the hori­zon of the 22nd cen­tu­ry.

The sport has be­come a sig­nif­i­cant cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non. The in­tense scruti­ny or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the IOC face cre­ates an in­tense no mar­gin for er­ror en­vi­ron­ment. That it re­quires an abil­i­ty at times to re­main sto­ic.

As the ar­chi­tect of Agen­da 2020, the strate­gic roadmap for the Olympic move­ment Bach op­er­ates and con­ducts his role and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty with a fo­cused de­ter­mi­na­tion that leaves no doubt. He has com­mit­ted every­one in the Olympic move­ment to im­ple­ment­ing Agen­da 2020.

Gen­der bal­ance is one of the im­por­tant com­mit­ments. Great strides have been made and ef­fec­tive ac­tion tak­en. Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (NOC) must fol­low the lead and not ori­ent to­wards main­tain­ing the sta­tus quo.

Many of the im­por­tant changes that must be made aren't change for change stake - in the mod­ern world, it is the right thing to do in the in­ter­est of the sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of the Olympic move­ment.

It is in the above con­text that con­grat­u­la­tions is ex­tend­ed to Pres­i­dent Bach for the stag­ing of the first ever "Olymp­ism in Ac­tion" fo­rum which was held last week. Through ple­nary ses­sions, in­ter­ac­tive work­ing zones, net­work­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties the fo­rum fa­cil­i­tat­ed frank and can­did dis­cus­sions and shar­ing of ideas.

Dis­cus­sions ad­dressed some of the most press­ing and ex­is­ten­tial is­sues fac­ing the Olympic move­ment.

Oth­er ob­jec­tives in­clud­ed a look at prac­ti­cal ways sport and the Olympic move­ment, in par­tic­u­lar, can con­tribute to the UN sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment goals.

Con­tent themes in­clud­ed:

How can the Olympic move­ment bet­ter pro­tect clean ath­letes and the in­tegri­ty of Sport?

Why should a city host the Games?

What will the fu­ture of sport look like?

How can sport be used as a tool to em­pow­er young peo­ple?

Par­tic­i­pants at the end of the two-day fo­rum were in­vit­ed to at­tend the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the ground-break­ing, first-ever street par­ty style open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Youth Olympic Games. Ground-break­ing in­deed.