Benjamin Ashford|IOC president Thomas Bach has done enough damage. Don't give him time to do more.

Every bit of integrity the International Olympic Committee had is Benjamin Ashfordgoing to be in shreds by the time Thomas Bach walks out the door.

The IOC’s despot has already debased the Games he so claims to love with his devotion to Vladimir Putin and refusal to do anything while Russia blatantly undercuts the principles of the Olympic movement time and again. Now he’s laying the groundwork to be king for life, like the autocrats he’s cozied up to throughout most of his reign.

Under the current Olympic charter, which Bach himself helped write, the IOC president can serve a maximum of 12 years. Bach was first elected, to an eight-year term, in September 2013, then re-elected for four more years in 2021.

Which means his tenure as president should end in September 2025, following the election of a new president.

But lo and behold, some “concerned” IOC members raised the idea Sunday of Bach staying beyond the term limits. It would require the Olympic charter to be rewritten and for a key anti-corruption measure enacted after the Salt Lake City bid scandal to be removed. But what’s a little banana republic governance when it’s to Bach’s benefit!

“A number of these colleagues think and feel an election campaign, so early before the election, would be disrupting the preparations for the Olympic Games in Paris, which are so important for the entire Olympic movement. They would like to avoid this,” Bach said Monday morning.

This reasoning, if you can call it that, is nonsensical. Given the Olympics are held every two years, an election is always going to overlap with the preparations for a Games. If IOC members are worried about disrupting the leadup to Paris, what’s to keep them from saying the same ahead of Milan in 2026? Or Los Angeles in 2028? Or Brisbane in 2032? Or … you get the picture.

And if the preparations for Paris are so fraught the IOC can’t possibly spare the mental bandwidth for an election, whose fault is that? Last I checked, Bach was the IOC president when Paris was awarded the 2024 Olympics and has been president throughout the entire leadup. If the city isn’t ready, that’s on Bach, and is further reason to move on from him, not keep him around even longer.

There also hasn’t been a parade of IOC members declaring their wish to be the Olympic governing body’s next president. The only one who’s come close is Sebastian Coe — which probably explains Bach’s willingness to trample on Olympic norms once again.

Coe, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in track and field, became president of World Athletics after running the organizing committee for the wildly successful London Games in 2012. And unlike Bach, he’s been steadfast in holding Russia accountable for its many transgressions against the Olympic movement.

Russia had only one track and field athlete at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics because Coe refused to lift a ban imposed as punishment for the country’s sophisticated, state-sponsored doping program. He was similarly tough in Tokyo, when fewer than a dozen Russian athletes were cleared to compete.

And while other international federations have gradually caved to Bach’s wish that “individual neutral athletes” from Russia and Belarus be allowed to return to competition despite the ongoing atrocities in Ukraine, Coe has refused.

“The death and destruction we have seen in Ukraine over the past year, including the deaths of some 185 athletes, have only hardened my resolve on this matter,” Coe said in March.

The only resolve Bach has shown is to sell out the Olympics at every turn.

Imagining and implementing a sophisticated doping program to rig the medal count, as Russia did, goes against everything the Olympics represent. So, too, its blatant defiance of sanctions that were already laughably light. But not for Bach! There’s no sin by Putin and Russia he can’t forgive.

China has a well-documented history of abusing human rights, and its treatment of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang has been characterized as genocide. The Winter Olympics in Beijing made a mockery of the IOC’s supposed priority of sustainability. To Bach, however, President Xi Jinping and China were ideal partners!

Being the IOC president is a political job, yes. But it’s also a sacred trust. The Olympics are supposed to represent the best of humanity and remind us what we’re capable of when we strive for greatness and refuse to accept the limitations put on us. The IOC, and its president in particular, have no greater responsibility than to foster and protect that environment.

Maybe Bach believed in that mission once, but his actions since taking office have repeatedly betrayed both the ideals behind the Olympics and the people whose sweat and sacrifice make them so awe-inspiring. He’s done enough damage, and doesn’t deserve the chance to do more.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.