By Chris Barrett
As Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky can attest, a sit-down with Donald Trump at the White House can go any which way.
But according to at least one official who has seen her at work, newly elected International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry is well-placed to deal with the unpredictable United States leader as she approaches an inevitable meeting with him about the next summer Games in Los Angeles.
Kirsty Coventry reacts as she delivers a speech after being elected as the new IOC president.Credit: Getty Images
“She’s very measured, she’s thoughtful … and very reasonable,” said Australian Olympic Committee chief executive Matt Carroll, who has known Coventry in her capacity as chair of the IOC’s co-ordination commission for Brisbane 2032.
“She’s been in government so I’m sure she’ll be able to manage the relationship with the US government in the same way.”
The 41-year-old made history at the Greek seaside resort of Costa Navarino, becoming the first woman and the first African to ascend to the highest post in the Olympic movement, as well as the youngest to have held the lofty position.
A protege of outgoing IOC president Thomas Bach and long-time Australian Olympic supremo John Coates, she was emphatically endorsed in a secret ballot of IOC members on Friday morning (Australian time).
Coventry received 49 of 97 votes, a majority that rendered further rounds of voting unnecessary and left rivals in her wake. Spain’s Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr polled next highest with 28 votes, while the heavily fancied British track champion and World Athletics president Sebastian Coe scored just eight.
“I have been dealing with, let’s say, difficult men in high positions since I was 20 years old.”
Kirsty Coventry
The two-time Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer will begin her eight-year term with a lot on her plate, not least handling the IOC’s ties with the US, which has become increasingly inward-looking and erratic in the international arena since Trump resumed power in January.
Proposed US travel restrictions may affect visitors from up to 43 countries, raising concerns from IOC members about a cohort of athletes being unable to obtain visas to participate in the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
Coventry, a member of the government in her native Zimbabwe who has been the African nation’s sports minister for the past seven years, indicated she would be beginning her own dialogue with Trump soon.
“I have been dealing with, let’s say, difficult men in high positions since I was 20 years old,” she said.
“First and foremost that I have learnt is that communication will be key. That is something that will happen early on. My firm belief is that President Trump is a huge lover of sports. He will want these Games to be significant. He will want them to be a success.”
Kirsty Coventry speaks with outgoing IOC president Thomas Bach.Credit: Getty Images
In a signal of what she is likely to stress to the US administration, she added: “We will not waver from our values and our values of solidarity and ensuring every athlete that qualifies for the Olympic Games has the possibility to attend the Olympic Games and be safe.”
Trump has also made his stance clear on the vexed issue of gender identity in sport, a dominant theme of the Paris Olympics last year, blocking transgender athletes from coming to the US to compete.
It’s a topic that Coventry will also need to tackle in the lead-up to Los Angeles.
Under Bach, it has been largely the sporting federations themselves who have determined eligibility policies for transgender and intersex athletes, and controversy erupted in boxing in Paris.
Coventry said the IOC had set up its own taskforce to address the debate, and she wanted the organisation to play more of a leading role.
“My stance is that we will protect the female category and female athletes. I want to work together with the international federations,” she said.
“We are going to bring everyone together, sit down and have a little bit more unity in the discussion.”
Another task confronting Coventry will be weighing up a potential return of Russia to the Olympics in the event of an end to the war in Ukraine.
Kirsty Coventry receiving her gold medal after the women’s 200-metre backstroke final at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.Credit: AP
Russian and Belarusian athletes were not permitted to compete under their national flags in Paris last year following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
With US-led peace talks planned in Saudi Arabia next week, a reappearance of Russia on the Olympic scene is on the cards and Putin was among the world leaders to congratulate Coventry on Friday.
Coventry’s association with a regime accused of repression of opposition voices will raise eyebrows.
She was once lauded as a “golden girl” by Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, who presented her with a $100,000 cash reward after she returned from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing with a gold and three silver medals.
Coventry was appointed as a government minister a year after the 2017 coup that removed Mugabe, who died in 2019.
“In terms of my country I chose to try and create change from the inside,” she said. “It gets criticised and that’s OK because at the end of the day I don’t think you can stand on the sidelines and scream for change. I believe you have to be seated at the table.”
Coventry said “glass ceilings have been shattered” with her election and it is not just significant because of her sex. Unlike her predecessors, she is close to being a contemporary of current athletes.
Bach also won gold as a fencer for then West Germany in Montreal in 1976, but it was decades before he rose to the IOC presidency.
Coventry assumes it only nine years after the last of her five Olympics as an athlete, at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
She is well known to Olympic officials in Australia. During a visit in 2022 she spoke at the AOC annual general meeting, relaying her experiences at the Sydney 2000 Games and telling of her appreciation for Australian sports fans and lamingtons and of meeting one of her idols, Susie O’Neill.
She has also been the IOC’s point person in chief on Brisbane 2032.
While indecision and dispute over the location of the major venues have marred the preparation for Australia’s third home Olympics to date, organisers have welcomed Coventry’s elevation.
“I think it’s very good to have the president of the IOC right across the Brisbane Games,” Carroll said. “That’s not to say the departing president wasn’t across it.
“But certainly Kirsty has been very obviously involved in the detail and I think that’s a great thing for the Brisbane Games.”
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