On the heels of the first gender-equal Olympic Games staged in Paris last year, International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidential candidate Kirsty Coventry is keen to cement the progress made by becoming the first woman in the organisation’s 130-year history to lead the Olympic Movement.
Coventry is a two-time Olympic gold medallist swimmer from Zimbabwe, currently serving as the Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation in her country’s government.
The 41-year-old is the only woman among seven candidates running for the IOC presidency, and she hopes to make history when committee members cast their votes at the upcoming elections on March 20 in Greece.
“I think as an organisation, we've done so much, especially under president [Thomas] Bach's leadership over the last 12 years in improving gender equality. And we saw it in Paris on the field of play with the athletes,” Coventry told The National in a roundtable interview over Zoom.
“Within the IOC members, we've also taken huge strides, and we're now, I think, close to 41 per cent or 42 per cent, which is an enormous leap.
“We still have a lot of work to do when you look outside. So when you look at the international federations, when you look at the National Olympic Committees, when you look at coaches, when you look at all the support staff, we still have a long way to go.
“For me, what better way to prove our commitment to gender equality than having the time and the opportunity to vote for a female president?”
The IOC is looking to elect its 10th president to succeed Bach, who has reached his 12-year limit at the helm.
Coventry, who is regarded as Bach’s preferred candidate, is up against Jordan’s Prince Feisal Al Hussein, Sebastian Coe, Juan Antonio Samaranch, Johan Eliasch, David Lappartient, and Morinari Watanabe.
Also read: Prince Feisal of Jordan on IOC presidency bid
An IOC member since 2013 – first as part of the Athletes’ Commission before getting elected as an individual member in 2021 – Coventry is running a platform that emphasises collaboration, a concept steeped in Zimbabwean culture.
“For me, the biggest thing that I am having a conversation around is collaboration and our Ubuntu philosophy of, ‘I am because we are’. And the way I've explained that to the members, they've all been very interested. They now all know what our Ubuntu philosophy is,” she explained.
“But I just believe that it is a unique perspective to use right now, because it's getting the understanding that if we're not working together, we're working against each other. And any decision that I make is going to have a negative or positive impact on every single stakeholder around me. So it's like a big ripple effect. And so we should be looking at how to collectively come together and make decisions.”
With that philosophy in mind, Coventry plans on tackling issues like athletes from conflict areas competing at the Olympic Games and transgender women taking part in female categories.
There has been an inconsistency in the IOC’s decision-making regarding the participation of athletes from conflict areas. Russians and Belarusians have only been allowed to compete under a neutral banner since the invasion of Ukraine while Israelis have been free to represent their country at the Paris Games.
Coventry does not want to see athletes pay the price for their governments’ decisions.
“I want to set up a specific task force that is going to work on coming up with a framework and a policy on how we protect and support athletes from conflict areas, with the goal of trying to ensure some form of consistency,” she said.
“From my point of view, we need to ensure that we want to get athletes to the Olympic Games and every athlete that qualifies should have that right. Now, when it comes to conflicts, you all know that there are different sensitivities. There's different ways in which conflicts were maybe started.
“But at the end of the day, majority of the time, the athletes have no voice. They have no say in those conflicts. So I do believe that we need to ensure and find ways to consistently be able to protect and support athletes from all conflict areas. There's more and more conflicts around the world. And so this challenge is not going away and we need to find a way and a solution to move forward.”
With regards to transgender athletes competing at the Olympics, the IOC has so far left it to individual international federations to determine which athletes are eligible to compete in each gender category.
Coventry believes the IOC should take a stronger leadership role in the matter moving forward.
“For me, particularly right now, I think that there has been enough work done within the international federations. And there's been more and more research that is showing that there is definitely a disadvantage to transgender female athletes competing against the female category,” she said.
“So I believe we need to protect the female category. And I believe at this point, the IOC, what I would like to do is bring in the international federations and come up with a collective policy and framework to ensure that we protect the female category.”
The issue of protecting the female category was front and centre in boxing during the Paris Olympics with the IOC facing immense scrutiny over the eligibility of Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting.
The International Boxing Association, which was derecognised by the IOC in 2023 over governance issues, claimed the two boxers had failed gender eligibility tests but both have been registered as female since birth.
With no recognised international federation taking over the governance duties of the boxing competition at the Olympics, the IOC took over those duties at the Paris Games and deemed Khelif and Lin eligible to compete. They both won Olympic gold in their respective weight classes.
Bach has previously described boxing as a “problem child” and the sport is at risk of being excluded from future Olympic programmes.
Last month, World Boxing was given provisional recognition by the IOC to be considered the International Federation for the sport within the Olympic Movement.
“I think it's important for boxing to stay in the Olympic Games,” said Coventry.
“But there's been so many governance issues. I think that there are always, in anything that we do, there's always lessons learned and things that we can continually improve on and make better.
“And ultimately, for me, that is what we need to do. We need to ensure that boxing athletes have the opportunity to box at the Olympic Games. And what the IOC has tried to do, it has tried to find a way to keep them there and not penalise the boxers for the federation's issues. So I think that should always remain the priority. And as we move forward, that has to still remain the priority.
“I know that there's now a new boxing federation that the IOC will work with. But we need to ensure that there is credibility and integrity there before anything moves forward.”
Coventry was born and grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe before moving to the United States to study at and swim for Auburn University in Alabama.
She says her experience at home and in the United States gave her a unique understanding of the big gulf that exists between well-funded and established NOCs like that of the US and underfunded ones like in Africa.
“A big part of what I would like to see is getting that gap smaller. And how are we going to do that? We're going to have to, I think, use and embrace AI and technology, but we're also going to need to start with making sure that every NOC has basic infrastructure, strong internet connection, a few key people that are going to be able to implement the programmes,” she said.
“We, as the IOC, need to make sure that we can help them attain that. And then you'll see the educational-based programmes like the MEMOS [Executive Masters in Sports Organisations Management] and others that the IOC offers filter down into the national federations.”
Coventry is against awarding prize money at the Olympic Games and instead wants to focus on finding ways to fund athletes on their journeys towards becoming Olympians.
“For me, my hardest part of my journey was becoming an Olympian and winning that Olympic medal,” said Coventry, whose seven-medal haul from Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 makes her the most-decorated African Olympian of all time.
“Once I won my Olympic medals I had so many offers of sponsors, it just all opened up. And so it's not that I don't think prize money has a value because I think at a World Championships or a World Cup, 100 per cent, but I think for the Olympic Games, part of what makes the Olympic Games unique is our solidarity model of trying to help and give everyone the same level of bedroom, of dining hall, of venues, right?
“Everything is the same for everyone. And so I would rather try and find more ways of directly supporting athletes and all athletes, not just the medal winners. Again, the Olympic Games is about everyone. It's about global impact. So I'd like to try and find ways of how we can impact athletes across the board, not just the medal winners, because I believe that that is more in line with our principles, our core values.”
She added: “It’s about finding more ways to directly fund athletes on their journey to becoming an Olympic athlete or finding other ways to help, if we think outside of the box, in order to help them with their training, increasing the Olympic solidarity scholarships, how do we have more money going to that programme so more athletes can get onto these scholarships? That for me will be the primary focus.”
Should she succeed in next week’s elections, Coventry wouldn’t just be the first woman to be voted IOC president, she would also be the first African to take on that role.
The Olympics have never been hosted by an African nation and while Coventry declared her neutrality when it comes to such matters, she admits it’s an exciting time for the continent with both Egypt and South Africa showing interest in hosting future Games, and Morocco confirmed as a co-host for the 2030 World Cup alongside Spain and Portugal.
“I would like to ensure that I would create a policy that would be free and fair to ensure that we really are embracing new regions,” she said.
“And if you look at our continent in a few years’ time, we're going to have half a billion people under the age of 35. And we're going to need to find really new ways of engaging with those young people and inspiring them.”
