Former IOC president Jacques Rogge, who steered the Olympic movement to an era of political and financial stability after its worst ethics scandal, has died at the age of 79, the Olympic organisation said on Sunday.

Although the International Olympic Committee did not share any details about his death. 

Since his 12-year-long presidency ended in 2013, Rogge’s health had deteriorated while he visited the Olympic games.

“First and foremost, Jacques loved sport and being with athletes — and he transmitted this passion to everyone who knew him,” Thomas Bach, Rogge’s successor as president, said in an IOC statement. “His joy in sport was infectious.”

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From 2001 until 2013, Rogge, a former orthopaedic physician from Belgium, led the International Olympic Committee through a period of relative peace and success, spanning three Summer Olympics and three Winter Games.

Born in Ghent, Belgium, Rogge, a three-time Olympian in sailing, received plaudits for bringing a level head to the typically tumultuous realm of Olympic politics, but he also faced criticism for not being harsh enough on China and Russia’s human rights concerns.

He oversaw a consistent increase in IOC income, even throughout the global economic crisis; he reconciled with the US Olympic Committee after years of harsh bickering over money-sharing; and he founded the Youth Olympics, which he considered his personal legacy.

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The IOC brought the Olympics to new nations and continents under Rogge’s leadership, giving the first Summer Games to South America (Rio de Janeiro in 2016) and the first Winter Games to Russia (Sochi 2014) and South Korea (Pyeongchang 2018).

“I hope that people, with time, will consider that I did a good job for the IOC,” the understated Rogge said in 2013. “That’s what you legitimately want to be remembered for.”

On July 16, 2001, Rogge was elected the IOC’s eighth president in Moscow, beating four other candidates to succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch, a Spaniard who had led the body for 21 years in an autocratic and arrogant manner.