Online Reporter
GENEVA — The world Kirsty Coventry walks into today as a groundbreaking president for the International Olympic Committee — the former NCAA Division I championship swimmer is the first female and the first African to hold the role — is already very different than the one she was elected in three months ago.
Just take Los Angeles, the host of the next Summer Games that is the public face and financial foundation of most Olympic sports.
The city described last week as a “trash heap” by US President Donald Trump is preparing to welcome teams from more than 200 nations in July 2028. Most of the 11,000 athletes and thousands more coaches and officials who will take part in the L.A. Olympics will have seen images of military being deployed against the wishes of city and state leaders.
For her first full day as president, Coventry has invited the 109-strong IOC membership to closed-doors meetings about its future under the banner “Pause and Reflect.”
“The way in which I like to lead is with collaboration,” Coventry, who was sports minister in Zimbabwe for the past seven years, told reporters Thursday.
Many, if not most, members want more say in how the IOC makes decisions after nearly 12 years of Bach’s tight executive control.
It was a theme in manifestos by the other election candidates, and the runner-up in March, IOC vice president Juan Antonio Samaranch — whose namesake father was the IOC president from 1980 to 2001 — will lead one of the sessions.
“I like people to say: ‘Yes, I had a say and this was the direction that we went,’” Coventry said. “That way, you get really authentic buy-in.”
In an in-house IOC interview, Coventry also described how she wanted to be perceived: “She never changed. Always humble, always approachable.”
That could mean more member input, if not an open and contested vote, to decide the 2036 Olympics host. — Chattanooga Times Free Press
