The election of a new President as well as 15 Board members was held at the Belfius Congress Centre in Belgium’s capital Brussels, following the postponement of last year’s elections as the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games was delayed until 2021.

Saive becomes the National Olympic Committees (NOC's) 10^th President since its inception in 1906, receiving 77 votes for and 37 against.

The former table tennis player competed at seven Olympic Games for Belgium, becoming European champion in 1994 and earning two silver medals at the World Championships.

He was put forward by the Royal Belgian Table Tennis Federation.

In 2017, Saive was narrowly beaten by Thomas Weikert in the International Table Tennis Federation’s (ITTF) Presidential elections.

He has been a BOIC Board member since 2009, and chaired its Athletes’ Commission from 2013 to 2017, holding a post on the same body with the ITTF since 2018.

Saive’s BOIC Presidential term runs until 2025.

He succeeds Beckers-Vieujant, a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 2012 and chair of the Paris 2024 Coordination Commission who had served as BOIC President since 2004.

Elections to the BOIC Board were also held at the EGM in Brussels, with seven members elected to the Dutch language group, seven to the French-speaking language group and one from the German language group.

Christophe Delecluse, Gijs Kooken, Sven Serré, Gwenda Stevens, Patrick Van Campenhout, Tom Van Damme and Peter Van den Bossche are the Dutch speakers, with Jean-Pierre Delchef, Dominique Gavage, Jean-François Hannosset, Yves Henet, Pascal Mertens, Dominique Monami and Sylvie Ronsse the French speakers and Didier Bonni the German speaker.

Belgium won seven medals including three golds at Tokyo 2020, its best performance for almost a century, when it also won three events at Paris 1924.