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Sport, Arts and Recreation Minister Kirsty Coventry is the only woman vying for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidency in the election set for Greece in March next year. Zimpapers Sports Hub’s PETROS KAUSIYO had a sit-down with Africa’s most decorated Olympian on her candidature and the battle against six male candidates.
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Q: Congratulations on having your candidature confirmed. What does this election mean from an African context given that if you were to win you would be the first from the continent to lead the IOC?
A: I am extremely honoured at this point in my career within the Olympic movement. As you know, the Olympics has been a part of my life since I was very young and just almost feels like this is now the next step in that journey, which started as a goal when I was nine years old and watching the Barcelona Olympics (1992) on TV and telling my parents that I would want to go and win a gold medal at the Olympics, to then getting a scholarship to the United States and then going on to win those gold medals.
Q: So, it is like you are living a dream?
A: Indeed, living that dream and then coming to the end of my career where I was wondering how I was going to still be able to get involved, and that is when I found the Athletes Commission and that led me into being an individual member with a number of years of experience in the Olympic movement, on the IOC.
I am back on the executive board for the second time, so I really felt like it was time now, Africa time, time for Africa, time for a woman, just time in general. I think when you get to certain pathways in your career, you have to choose whether or not you are going to keep running the race, move forward or not.
And for us, for me, for my family, for a lot of support that I have received from my African colleagues, from my IOC colleagues, everything felt like the time is now to throw my hat into the ring and again come back to being an athlete . . . that spirit of competitiveness and wanting to see where it will take us.
Q: Victory would be the first time that a woman would take the leadership of IOC. What would this mean for the movement?
A: It will be a milestone. As a movement, we have been working very hard under the leadership of president Bach (Thomas) to ensure we reach gender equality. Paris (2024 Olympic Games) was the first where we had 50-50 men and women on the field of play. Within the IOC membership, our female membership is now over 40 percent, so it has been growing.
Someone asked me the other day whether I had thought about these firsts or not — first woman, first African, and I said no. I just thought about where my career was taking me, the experiences that I had and the value that I believe I can bring to the movement and continue adding to the movement and to serve the movement.
Q: To what extent has your experience on the Athletes Commission prepared you for this challenge?
A: I was a member of the Athletes Commission for eight years and then an individual member from 2021. So, for the last four years, I am an individual member.
The Athletes Commission gives you such an incredible view of all the aspects of the Olympic movement because the athletes are at the heart of everything. Of all the discussions, whether it is from the finance commission or the entourage commission, the athletes are fully represented.
So, as a commission member and then chairing that commission, I got to see the entire complexity of the movement and what it looks like, some of the challenges that the IOC faces, getting to witness incredible athletes on the field of play, so you really have a range and a variety.
And then stepping out of the athlete’s role into the individual role and being able to use the experiences that I have learnt and the experiences that I have got from being a Minster of Sport in Zimbabwe, in a developing country.
I think those experiences have shaped me and I believe allowed me to have a different view when discussing many things.
I have been super-fortunate that I was born and raised in Zimbabwe, have come back to serve the country, as well as being educated in the United States, so I got to see both sides of the coin, the developing and the developed.
Here we have to be very innovative with the funds that we have, and then living seven, eight, 10, 11 years in the US where funding is free-flowing.
So, I got to also understand how different National Olympic Committees (NOCs) work, the bigger and more-funded and the smaller and less-funded and when I was weighing up the decision to run, I thought all those experiences will add value.
Q: Is it more about having personal experience, as opposed to having observed from some distance?
A: I truly have been able to live and gain experience from both sides and an appreciation of the different sides. I can use my Games in Athens and Beijing when I had been training in college, specifically Athens, where I won my first medals and I had been on scholarship. I had a team of 60 people all supporting, all going the same way and when you get to the Olympics and there were three of us, you could see the differences.
You get to have a greater appreciation of the steps that the smaller NOCs take to try to help their athletes succeed. Smaller NOCs like Zimbabwe, we really benefitted from the Olympic Solidarity model, which is why I believe I was able to succeed.
Olympic Solidarity scholarships came into play and allowed me to take a little bit of pressure off my parents in trying to find extra money to send me to meets, just to keep up with everything.
It’s really like kind of come full circle.
Q: What happens between now and the IOC session in March?
A: Obviously, as IOC members, we had to write to the IOC president, a letter of intention to run and to be a candidate and the deadline for that was September 15 and I am counting good omens because that was His Excellency’s birthday (President Mnangagwa).
I told His Excellency that we are good to go. And then the actual announcement of candidates was on my birthday (September 16), so we are good at the moment; this is really positive.
From now on, the campaign has started. It is official now who the candidates are, including myself. Now, everyone will be running their campaigns slightly differently. End of January, there will be a session where all IOC members come together and candidates will present their visions, missions and manifestos.
There will be time for some dialogue and then it goes into another session that is in Athens, also another good omen for me, where I won my first medal and it will be very special.
But the session in Greece in March will be when members will vote for who they want to take over from Thomas Bach and, like I said, everyone runs their campaigns differently.
For me, I believe I have really been extremely successful in the different sectors of my life because I have been surrounded by really good people and I want to do that. I want to stay authentic to that.
What is important is that I make sure I speak to every single member and understand from them their priorities, their challenges and how they want to be a part of the future moving forward. Again, I think it comes from our African roots and the spirit of Ubuntu . . . ‘I am because of who you are, because of who you all are’ and it is going to be one of the foundational points of my campaign in the next few months.
Q: Any message to Zimbabweans?
A: Thank you for the support, for the excitement. It is really exciting and just like when I won my Olympic medals. It is not every day that everything goes according to plan, everything has its ups and downs, but it is really about how we face those challenges and how we move forward, how we adapt quickly and those are all the things that my athlete career taught me — how to be adaptable, how to look at things in a different way, from a different point of view and, as we move forward, I am going to do my best to keep the nation updated on the steps and the stepping stones which we will take to be successful in March.
Online Reporter