It took 131 years – Kirsty Coventry becomes IOC’s first female President

Zimbabwe sports minister and two-time Olympic gold medalist Kirsty Coventry has become the IOC’s first female President. She has emerged victorious from a tight race against six men from all over the sporting world. On June 23 she will become the first female head in the organization’s 131-year history.

The 41-year-old began to feel the heat just one hour after she was elected, during her press conference. The first question, as the Guardian reports, was how she should manage a man like Trump if, say, he were to ban athletes from certain countries for the forthcoming Games in Los Angeles.

“I have been dealing with let’s say difficult men in high positions since I was 20 years old. What I have learned is that communication will be key. That is something that will happen early on, ”Coventry replied, adding, “We will not waver from our values. Solidarity and ensuring every athlete that qualifies for the Olympic Games has the possibility to attend the Olympic Games and be safe during the Olympic Games.”

A swimming President 

Kirsty Coventry was a world-class swimmer in her day, having retired after the Rio Olympics of 2016 – her fifth Games.

During her career she broke the world record in the 400m individual medley (short course), the 200m backstroke (short course), the 200m individual medley (short course) and the 100m backstroke (long course). She broke the world record for the 200m backstroke (long course) twice. Through the Olympics (2004 and 2008) she came into possession of two gold, four silver and one bronze medal.

Coventry was born in Zimbabwe and has been that country’s Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation since 2018, under President Emmerson Mnangagwa. She was in fact reappointed to the post after a dust-up with the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA), which had accused her of lying to Parliament on March 29, 2023. During that session she stated that ZIFA had misappropriated $2 million in government funds, that four female referees had filed lawsuits against ZIFA officials for sexual harassment and that ZIFA was delinquent in getting its suspension lifted from FIFA.

Suspended members of the ZIFA board released a statement in reply to refute Coventry’s claims, saying that ZIFA had received no more than $53,000 from the government and had been acquitted of wrongdoing, that there had been no accusations of sexual harassment against ZIFA board members, but rather that an official on the referees committee had been found guilty by FIFA, and that ZIFA had been “secretly making numerous but failed requests for reinstatement to FIFA.”

According to Zimsportlive, bank statements appear to corroborate ZIFA’s story. Coventry, for her part, has retracted nothing. “Four female referees have come forward and given their statements to police and they have been investigated,” she said in 2023. “Three of those members were on the Board. One of those members has already received a lifetime ban from FIFA following their own investigations conducted over the last two months.”

Zimbabwe’s Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) disbanded ZIFA’s Executive Committee, over the aforementioned scandals, in November 2021, and FIFA suspended ZIFA, over government interference, in February 2022. The suspension lasted 18 months, through the summer of 2023. Zimbabwe will now be permitted to compete in the 2026 World Cup.

Coventry has been involved with the IOC since 2013, becoming an individual member in 2021 and a member of the Executive Board in 2018 and again in 2023. She is also the Chairman of the IOC’s Athletes’ Commission. In addition, she is on the Athletes’ Committee at World Aquatics (FINA) and the Foundation Board at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Coventry and her husband, Tyrone Seward, are the founders of the Kirsty Coventry Trust, a non-profit that in turn operates two other non-profits: the Kirsty Coventry Academy, a swimming school, and the HEROES Program, a self-described “community-based program” to “leverage the power of sport” to deal with truancy, teen pregnancy, child marriages, drug addiction and “gender-based violence.”