Status update: Jacques Rogge is feeling a little uncool and is interested in the next generation of Olympic watchers. If the 66-year-old president of the IOC had a Facebook profile, that is what it might say as he prepares to take the Olympic Movement into its next phase in the run-up to London 2012 and beyond.

However, rather than risk the ignominy of “poking” Generation Y and not being poked back, Rogge is enlisting the 3,500 teenaged athletes competing at the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in 2010 to spread the Olympic gospel for him. By asking each competitor to link a personal blog to Facebook, MySpace and other online networking communities, he hopes to reach the millions of under-18s more likely to play Grand Theft Auto than hockey.

“The idea is, 'Hey, we should be practising sport'. It's all a different generation to me, but I see the potential to get the message across,” Rogge, a sober-suited Belgian, told The Times in an exclusive interview in Lausanne, Switzerland. In a rare admission that they do not hold all the answers, the largely grey-haired Olympic administrators are even prepared to let youngsters loose in their hallowed headquarters on the shores of Lake Geneva. “We need to hire more young people,” Rogge said. “If they have baggy pants and pink hair, that's OK.”

For one of world sport's crustier establishments, this is tantamount to a revolution. But it reflects the fact that, while the average age of an Olympic participant is 24, the average age of an Olympic viewer is 46. The typical IOC member (average age 61.7) became a teenager in the year Buddy Holly was killed and the Dalai Lama fled Tibet.

Recruiting the Facebook generation to the Olympic Movement is part of a wider plan to keep the Games relevant and will be a key theme of the thirteenth Olympic Congress in Copenhagen next year. The first congress since 1994 and the first to involve public consultation, it will “take the pulse” of the Olympics in the modern era.

Adding snowboarding to the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, and BMX cycling to the Beijing 2008 programme - plus more youth-orientated advertising campaigns - have helped, but critics of a sports festival conceived in the 1890s argue for a more fundamental rethink to win the youth vote. With an ageing audience, the Olympics needs new devotees, but faces a tough battle for hearts and minds against the lure of digital entertainment. Rogge calls it “screen tyranny”. As a qualified doctor, it exercises him greatly that PCs and TVs are making children more sedentary.

Rogge, who designed the Youth Olympic Games specifically for 14 to 18-year-olds, was won over by Lord Coe's pledge that London 2012 would spur physical activity in the fight against youth obesity. “It's not just a medical issue,” Rogge said. “Kids are attracted to visual, interactive forms of communication. It's not going to be easy for sport to counter that.

“You won't hear me saying sport is not fun - it is. But it requires austerity and discipline. The answer is achievement. You will never achieve in a video game. It is not really success.”

With British ministers and Olympic officials expected to announce today the sporting legacy of the London Games at the end of the IOC inspection team's three-day visit, Rogge's comments are precisely timed. A self-professed “old-timer” of co-ordination commissions, having overseen preparations for the Sydney Games in 2000 and Athens in 2004, he is unconcerned about construction timetables and budgets and said that everything seems to be running “smoothly”. But London 2012's sporting legacy is another matter and, until today at least, its delivery is unclear.

Lord Coe is expected to come good on his promise to inspire a new generation of Olympic followers and Rogge has no doubt about sport's ability to address Britain's social malaises, including obesity and crime. London 2012 “is going to have a big impact on the perception of sport among the youth and their parents”, Rogge said. “I hope one of the things that comes out of the Games is that politicians protect greens in the city and make sport accessible to everyone. The aftermath in terms of participation is very important.”

Jacques Rogge stands his ground over torch relay

When Jacques Rogge used the word “crisis” to describe the pro-Tibet protests that followed Beijing's Olympic torch relay, there was a sharp intake of breath from seasoned IOC followers. The Belgian usually displays a mundane efficiency at press conferences that can be relied upon to starve any story of sensationalism. But after violent scenes in London and Paris, the IOC president - a doctor by profession - was in no mood to play down events, even to appease his Chinese hosts.

Now, with the torch safely inside China and the protests a dim memory, does he regret using such an inflammatory word? “No,” he said. “What is there to regret? Perhaps it is from working in an emergency ward, but when I see a crisis, I call it. Normally at those executive board meetings we have 35 to 40 journalists, but in Beijing there were about 300.”

Rogge faced a barrage of questions about China's right to host the Games given concerns over human rights abuses and media restrictions. At the time, he could say only that he was certain the promises would be met. Then, on May 12, disaster struck with a devastating earthquake.

“The free reporting of the earthquake could not have happened without the Games,” Rogge said. “For the first time there was access to the area, interviews with victims. This is totally new for the Chinese and they are not going to claw back. We have always said the Games would open up China to the world. I would have preferred not to have this as the proof.”