Bach Takes Over as Head of Olympics BUENOS AIRES - Thomas Bach, a German lawyer, on Tuesday became the first gold-medal-winning Olympic athlete to be named president of the International Olympic Committee. Bach, who will be 60 in December, won in team foil fencing for West Germany at the 1976 Montreal Games. He is the ninth president of the committee - all have been white males - and the eighth from Europe. Pierre de Coubertin, the French baron who founded the modern Olympics, won a gold medal in the arts competition for a poem called "Ode to Sport" while using two pseudonyms at the 1912 Stockholm Games, according to the I.O.C. Bill Mallon, an Olympic historian, said de Coubertin was the only entrant and also judged that arts competition. "I know about the great responsibility of an I.O.C. president," Bach, who has compared himself to the conductor of an orchestra, told Olympic delegates. This makes me humble. I want to lead the I.O.C. according to my motto: unity in diversity. Tense relations between the United States and the Olympic committee continued to ease Tuesday as Larry Probst, 63, who is chairman of the United States Olympic Committee, was named an I.O.C. delegate. The United States recently settled a feud with the I.O.C. over sharing financial rights to television and corporate sponsorships. There are now four Americans among the 112 members of the I.O.C.: Anita DeFrantz, James Easton, Probst and Angela Ruggiero. An I.O.C. delegate since 1991, and head of the German Olympic Committee, Bach prevailed over five challengers. He has long been viewed as a potential president of the I.O.C., which is perhaps the most powerful job in world sport. His supporters view Bach as efficient, a skilled political insider, an advocate against doping and vastly experienced in the committee with expertise ranging from the law to negotiating television rights to bidding on the Games. "I think he would bring a level of experience that arguably no previous president has ever had," Michael Payne, a former marketing director of the I.O.C., said of Bach. As Bach replaces Jacques Rogge as I.O.C. president, the Olympic committee faces a number of serious issues, including legislation that is viewed as antigay that was recently passed in Russia ahead of the 2014 Sochi Games; exorbitant costs that have led to protests about spending in Brazil ahead of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games; illegal betting and match fixing; corruption among sports officials; and doping. The I.O.C. seems prepared to adhere closely in Sochi to a rule in the Olympic charter that prohibits political demonstrations at Olympic sites. Athletes who violate the rule in Sochi in February - even by wearing a small rainbow pin or a patch - may risk being disqualified from the Games. Bach did not immediately address the issue. Dick Pound, an influential delegate from Montreal, said he would give this advice to Olympic officials in various nations: "You say to your kids, if you screw around with this we'll send you home." Such discipline of an American athlete might cause outrage in the United States, where attitudes toward same-sex marriage and discrimination based on sexual orientation have evolved significantly. Pound called the Russian antigay law "disgusting," but said that athletes and officials should realize they will be in Sochi as guests. "If there have been lots of warnings, there's no excuse for it," Pound said of athletes wearing rainbow pins. Then it becomes a provocation. Though he was widely expected to become I.O.C. president, Bach's candidacy was buffeted by an accusation by a rival candidate, Denis Oswald of Switzerland, that Bach was using his Olympic connections for financial gain for companies he represents. And a recent German television documentary brought accusations that Bach had cheated at fencing four decades ago by using a wet glove to short-circuit the electronic scoring system; that he had been part of an influence-peddling scheme while working for the Adidas sporting goods company in the 1980s; and that he headed an Arab-German chamber of commerce with anti-Israeli leanings. Christian Klaue, a spokesman for the German Olympic Committee, called the allegations "nonsense" in a recent interview. Bach was long ago cleared in the influence-peddling scheme. Alex Gilady, an I.O.C. delegate from Israel, has said that any suggestion that Bach was anti-Israeli was "idiotic." Oswald, Bach's Swiss rival, told reporters in recent days that Bach lacked independence because he relied on the backing of an influential sheik and I.O.C. member from the Kuwaiti royal family. Sheik Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah was reprimanded by the Olympic committee after violating a rule several months ago against public support of a presidential candidate. In an interview last week, Bach said, "There is no kingmaker." He said he made no promises to anyone except that "I'm willing to discuss many issues" facing the I.O.C. On Monday, Bach told reporters that he was neither interested in nor bothered by the accusations. Klaue, the spokesman for the German Olympic Committee, has said that Bach did not want to dignify the accusations by responding. "There is no smoking gun," said Jens Sejer Andersen, international director of Play the Game, a sports ethics campaigner based in Denmark. He added of Bach, "What sometimes is a bit tricky is that he seems to avoid certain issues regarding his past." It may not matter in I.O.C. circles. David Wallechinsky, an Olympic historian, said, "Once you're in power, you're in power."