Kirsty Coventry, the powerbroker driving the Brisbane Olympics
As state and federal governments bicker over Brisbane 2032, the IOC have appointed a no-nonsense representative to keep the Games on track.
When Kirsty Coventry met Annastasia Palaszczuk for dinner during the Queensland Premier’s short stay at the Tokyo Olympics in July, there may have been an inkling that the two would meet again.
For here were two top female politicians: Coventry the independent sports minister in Zimbabwe; and Palaszczuk, the Labor premier, finding a common ground over Japanese noodles in the Olympic hotel just as the Games were getting underway.
Coventry at that point was a member of the Tokyo 2020 Co-ordination Commission under the leadership of John Coates, the Australian vice-president of the IOC.
Coates, as is his customary political manoeuvring, thought it important that the woman, considered a possible IOC presidential candidate when incumbent Thomas Bach steps down in 2025, should meet the woman who garnered the Olympics for Brisbane 2032.
Within weeks Palaszczuk appointed herself to be the Minister for the Olympics, and last week Bach handed Coventry, 38, the IOC’s top post to be co-ordination commission chair, overseeing the Brisbane Games preparations for the Lausanne-based organisation.
“The premier loves Queensland and loves her country and Brisbane, and just wants what’s best for the region. So I think that also will really bode well in terms of a great delivery,’’ Coventry said of Palaszczuk.
So when we meet online this week, the immediate question to Coventry – who juggled the pregnancy of her now two year-old daughter Ella with her IOC athletes commission responsibilities and being given a political portfolio in Zimbabwe – is whether strong women involved in the key decisions will bring about a different feeling or approach to the 2032 Games?
Coventry doesn’t miss a beat: “I think so, I’d like to hope so. You know, I think that it shows change and adaptability. And it shows that there’s a lot of faith and confidence in us.
“I think it’s just also being able to be given this platform, an opportunity to show strong female leaders, across different spheres, and when they come together, we can be a force to be reckoned with. So I’m very excited.”
Coventry’s Olympic experience began at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games when she was still a teenager, having just finished school in Harare.
She had learned to swim from the age of 18 months by her swim coach grandfather Robert and uncle who swam for Rhodesia.
As a lanky teenager she took solace in the sport to escape cruel schoolyard teasing about her thin frame. Training hours a day in a pool was a “safe and enjoyable space’’ and led to her winning seven Olympic medals at the Athens and Beijing Olympics in backstroke and medley events.
So it is no surprise that now as the Zimbabwe minister for sport, Coventry has drawn upon her guiding the IOC athletes commission through contentious questions about the rights of athletes to protest under the IOC charter article 50, and the even more serious controversies about athlete safety and welfare, to bring about change in her own country. Seeing how different countries have addressed sport integrity issues working with national Olympic Committees has been an eye-opener.
She said: ’’Safeguarding around athletes has been a huge, huge topic and has been for the past three years and it is something we are implementing here back home. We have seen corruption in different sporting bodies and have seen how athletes have been targeted, specifically in cricket matches through match fixing’’. Coventry said that at the moment there weren’t sufficient laws to protect athletes nor for whistleblowers who can report problems.
“That’s what we are focussing on now and I am grateful for the experience on the athletes commission as I got to see how that was structured from a global perspective.’’
Along with her husband Tyrone Seward, who was charged one cow and two chickens as “lobola” by Coventry’s father for her hand in marriage in 2013, Coventry also runs a Zimbabwe charity, Heroes, which conducts swim lessons for babies as young as six months of age up to grandparents, and the proceeds are then channelled into paying coaches who then provide training in various sports in local communities.
Coventry is particularly enthused that she will be in charge of a Games in Australia, given that her Olympic career began in Sydney in 2000 and that Australians are such sports-loving people.
Coates is one of her mentors and she believes having him provide an insight and understanding of Australian issues and political nuances will be more valuable than relying on reports.
“He can help me keep my finger on the pulse,’’ said Coventry.
She will, naturally, make sure the athlete experience is top of the agenda.
Unusually for a swimmer, particularly one who has events on the next morning after a ceremony that goes into the early hours, Coventry said she has always attended the opening.
“Oh God, well I always love the flame, I love the torch being lit and in Sydney it was so iconic, you know, with Cathy Freeman standing there in the middle. I have to see that flame and then all those emotions and things get going. So it’s worth the late night for sure.”
Coventry was also pinching herself when walking back from the Sydney Olympic village dining hall with her coach she saw a crowd developing.
“So we walked over to go and see what was happening and Muhammad Ali had come to the village. And I just remember being like, Oh my gosh, this is insane. Just incredible. I can’t believe I’m even here.’’
Another memory of Sydney is watching one of her idols, Susie O’Neill swim, and then, even better, being able to swim next to her in the warm-up pool.
“Those three things for me just stick out like, yeah, they’re just the first things that come back to me,’’ she said.
Coventry’s great aunt Sheila Rogers, has been a long time Queenslander and Coventry has close friends who have just moved from Toowoomba to Brisbane. She has visited the city several times.
Those who have worked alongside Coventry speak about how she demands results, considers advice and then acts quite quickly.
She says that is true.
“I do like to make decisions quite quickly, I don’t like to drag out time. Once we have all the evidence and all the data and research in you know it makes sense to move quickly. Just from being an athlete I am very goal-orientated. I like to set small goals and work with a team towards it and my teams probably say I put a lot of pressure in terms of results, but I want to achieve something working with people. I don’t think you can go on a journey alone.
Coventry may have to use all of her political nous to navigate the current imbroglio of state-federal tensions about the funding of the Brisbane Olympics and the makeup of the organising committee board. But no matter who she ends up working with, one gets a distinct impression that she will be able to coalesce any gaggle of political, sporting and business types into a forward-thinking, can-do unit.
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout