Online Reporter
KIRSTY COVENTRY’s illustrious swimming career paved the way for her rise in the International Olympic Committee (IOC), where she recently secured a resounding electoral victory.
However, her tenure as International Surfing Federation vice president has many in the sport hopeful about its inclusion at the next Summer Games.
The first woman and African to chair the IOC once current leader Thomas Bach steps down next June, the Zimbabwean showcased an impressive athletic career all the way to last week’s 144th IOC Session in Greece, having won seven of the country’s eight Olympic medals to date.
Her achievements outside the pool are also notable, having been appointed as her country’s Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation in September 2018 and later retained as Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture Minister.
She was elected to the IOC as a member of the Athletes’ Commission in 2013, a position from which she escalated all the way to the eventual top spot after last Thursday’s vote.
As Coventry now sets forth to plan out the beginning of her mandate this summer, positioning has also started to take shape among officials, federations and political actors galore with the hopes of benefitting from a clean slate towards upcoming Olympic cycles.
Leaving no stone unturned, many have combed through her resumé and now hope her ample experience within the Olympic Movement, featuring different stints that helped her strengthen personal ties with federation bosses, translates into improved relationships which in turn could benefit their sport.
Such is the case with the International Surfing Federation, who can claim more than just close ties with the Zimbabwean.
Once she retired from swimming after the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Summer Games, Coventry went on to handle, among other posts of responsibility, said federation’s vice presidency while also being a member of World Swimming’s Athlete Committee, as well the World Anti-Doping Agency.
After the inclusion of surf in the 2020 Tokyo Games and its continued short-boarding success in Paris 2024, the ISA now hopes to ride the wave of Coventry’s impulse all the way to Los Angeles 2028, where it plans to land a second discipline to its Olympic programme: longboard.
“Kirsty is a great friend of surfing and we are grateful for her support as our sport continues on its Olympic journey,” said the federation’s president, Fernando Aguerre, who is eager to keep growing the sport well beyond the California event and keeps eyeing Brisbane 2032 as its big coming-out party.
For the Argentinian official, Coventry’s electoral victory marked “a signal” of sorts which could very well mark “the inclusion of longboard at the Los Angeles Games” while the surfing body plays the ‘new medal event’ card (a new event within the same parent discipline) in order bypass the original October 2023 date for LA28’s Olympic programme.
Having served as VP from 2017 to 2024, Coventry also got to know Italian Surfing, Water Skiing and Wakeboard Federation President Claudio Ponzani quite well, and the official has not been shy about voicing his shared and ambitious intentions.
“Thanks to this election, the hope of all of us is that there will be a greater sensitivity for our sports, so we certainly hope that longboarding will be included in LA2028 and I also expect Sup in Brisbane 2032, another discipline practised all over the world and with exponentially growing numbers in our federation as well,” Ponzani told La Gazzetta Dello Sport newspaper recently.
Now with the most powerful IOC insider possible in Coventry, surf’s various governing bodies are eager to get official confirmations sealed even as the initial March deadline passes, with ISA expecting a final decision around mid-April, per La Gazzetta reports, just ahead of the longboard world championships in El Salvador.
Aguerre, a flamboyant and influential figure himself who long advocated for the sport’s Olympic inclusion and followed the steps of Duke Kahanamoku, modern surf’s unofficial founder, kept the pressure on ever since he took over ISA’s reigns in 1994 and kickstarted wave riding events like the World Junior Surfing Championship, the World Longboard Surfing Championship, the World Bodyboard Championship, the World Masters Surfing Championship, and the World Kneeboard Championship.
The Argentine has a new deputy in Australian surfer Sally Fitzgibbons, who took over from Coventry in December as the Zimbabwean reached the final stretch of her IOC presidential campaign.
They both now sit in the Olympic Programme Comision which is charged with proposing new disciplines to the IOC Executive Board, chaired by Coventry herself.
As she takes over the Olympic reigns from Bach after campaigning for further appealing to younger audiences, which surfing surely provided in Paris 2024, the new chief of world sport could turn to an expanded offer no sooner than the 2028 Summer Games in sunny California, the first of her mandate.
“We have many boys and girls who are growing, both in shortboard and longboard,” Ponzani told La Gazzetta regarding Italy’s prospects.
The next Olympics, winter edition, will be held in about a year in Milan, so he should have plenty of chances to lobby for surf’s expansion by then if the longboard discipline hasn’t yet been able to ride Coventry’s wave all the way to the top. – insidethegames.com.
