The fact that Beijing hosts summer and winter games also has something to do with one of the forefathers of modern sports corruption. His foster sons could shape the Olympic world for a long time, including Juan Antonio Samaranch junior – will he follow his father to the IOC throne?
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Thomas Kistner and Johannes Knuth
Tianjin, half an hour by train from Beijing. Here is one of the greatest Olympic powerhouses, if you will: a memorial to Juan Antonio Samaranch senior, the Lord of the Rings in general: 41 years a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), 21 years as President, and, judging by the monument they erected for him in Tianjin, a people’s hero in the People’s Republic. The “Samaranch Memorial” measures 25,000 square meters, as if a spaceship had landed there and congealed into concrete. Inside: 16,578 personal items, as the website meticulously reports, busts, posters, medals, paintings, even Samaranch’s favorite aftershave, which they used to distribute to reporters at the IOC.