Life and Career
Born in Ghent, Belgium, under the Nazi-occupation, Rogge is by profession an orthopedic surgeon and was educated at the University of Ghent. Rogge competed in yachting in the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics, and played on the Belgian national rugby union team. In yachting (Finn-class) he won the world championships once and took second place twice, and was crowned Belgian champion sixteen times. He also won the Yachting World Cadet Trophy and took part in the regatta Ton Cup.
Rogge served as President of the Belgian Olympic Committee from 1989 to 1992, and as President of the European Olympic Committees from 1989 to 2001. He became a member of the IOC in 1991 and joined its Executive Board in 1998. He was knighted in 1992, and in 2002 made a Count in the Belgian nobility by King Albert II.
In his free time, Rogge is known to admire modern art and is an avid reader of historical and scientific literature. He is married to Anne; they have two adult children. His son Philippe was the delegation leader of the Belgian Olympic Committee for the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Read more about this topic: Jacques Rogge
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or career:
“What is art,
But life upon the larger scale, the higher,
When, graduating up in a spiral line
Of still expanding and ascending gyres,
It pushes toward the intense significance
Of all things, hungry for the Infinite?
Art’s life,—and where we live, we suffer and toil.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)