Former swimming great Kirsty Coventry says she sees no problem in being a candidate to become the most powerful person in sport despite being a minister in a Zimbabwean government whose election in 2023 was described as neither “free nor fair.”
The two-time Olympic gold medalist — she has seven medals in all — has been sports minister of the southern African nation since 2019 and was reappointed in 2023 by Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
She is one of seven candidates bidding to succeed Thomas Bach as president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and if successful she would break the glass ceiling of being both the first woman and first African to be elected.
Photo: AFP
At 41 she would also be the youngest ever IOC president.
However, being part of a government whose legality is disputed might be problematic.
The International Commission of Jurists criticized the 2023 elections saying they were “by no means free, fair and credible.”
Coventry says being part of the government has permitted her to reform from within.
She said she would be at ease if she were elected and had to take a tough line with other governments and federations.
“I have learned so many things from stepping into this ministry role. I have taken it upon myself to change a lot of policies within my country and how things are done,” she said. “I think every country has its challenges and issues. Looking at specifically Zimbabwe, the 2023 election was the first time in over 20 or 30 years where there was no violence. That’s a step in the right direction.”
Coventry says it would be a “huge thing” for the African continent if she is elected and would show that the IOC is “truly a global organization.”
“For Africa, it would open up, I think, many opportunities for different leadership roles to say, right, as Africa we’re ready,” she said. “We’re ready to lead. We’re capable of leading. We have the support. Let’s go. Let’s do it.”
Coventry is dismissive of the claim that there are rumblings among IOC members about how “African” she is, because she is white.
“They haven’t spoken to me about it,” she said. “This was a question that I had when I won my medals in 2004 and Zimbabwe was going through a lot of turmoil. I was asked by someone in the media: ‘Do you think the country will be happy that a white Zimbabwean won their first medal in 24 years?’ I, to be honest, was completely shocked because for me, I just see myself as a Zimbabwean. I was born there. My mother was born there. My grandmother was born there.”
She has even adopted as her IOC campaign slogan “Ubuntu,” which is an African philosophy: “It is about essentially I am because we are.”
“I am because we are is really the basis of my manifesto,” she said. “I want this to be collaborative.”
Her ministerial role has allowed her to travel extensively, most recently to Davos for the World Economic Forum and to the UN General Assembly last year.
The atmosphere there impressed upon her the importance of the IOC, and its values of neutrality and uniting people.
“It was really depressing,” she said. “It was so divisive. You can see heads of state who generally the world would turn to, to unify all of us, were choosing to just focus on inward-looking and not outward. I think we have a really unique opportunity as the Olympic world, as the sporting world, to showcase how humanity can be and how we can respect each other’s differences.”
Coventry, who says her main reason for running was “because the Olympic Games changed my life,” believes becoming the first female president would build on all the work already done by the IOC on gender equality.
“That, for me, would be the best way to continue pushing gender equality into coaches, into our sports administrators, but I also want to be the best person,” she said. “With my experience being an athlete, with navigating sensitive politics in Zimbabwe, by coming from a global south country, but studying in the US and being there long term, having both views. For me, that is just as important.”
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