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Bach succeeded outgoing president Jacques Rogge
in 2013 after prevailing over five other candidates in an
election in Buenos Aires.
Presidents are limited to two terms in office under the rules of
the Olympic body. The length of the first presidential term is
eight years with re-election securing another four years in
office.
"The members of the IOC were informed today... that President
Thomas Bach will be the only candidate for the presidential
election, which will be held during the 137th IOC Session in
Athens in March 2021," it said in a statement.
Bach is a German lawyer who won a gold medal in fencing at the
1976 Montreal Olympics.
An IOC member since 1991, he introduced a string of reforms in
2014 designed to reduce the cost and size of the Olympics, as
potential host cities were scared away by the financial
implications.
He also had to deal with the fallout of the 2014 Sochi Olympics
doping scandal that led to the Olympic ban of Russia in 2018,
and more recently had to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympics for a
year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He has also ruled the IOC virtually unopposed, with the vast
majority of decisions receiving unanimous support from the
committee members, who currently number just over 100.
More than half of them became members during Bach's presidency.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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