The News
The International Olympic Committee on Thursday elected Kirsty Coventry to lead sport’s top governing body. The current Zimbabwean sports minister, Coventry, 41, becomes the first woman and the first person from Africa to lead the IOC — “the most powerful job in world sport.”
She succeeds German former fencer and gold medalist Thomas Bach, who supported her candidacy. Coventry offered “almost complete continuity with [Bach’s] policies,” The Associated Press noted.
While the IOC is “financially robust,” she has pushed for the group to pursue new commercial opportunities. “If we’re going to deliver more finance to athletes and federations, we have to grow our revenues,” Coventry told The Athletic before her election.
It is a view shared by the other candidates for the job: Spanish investment banker Juan Antonio Samaranch told Semafor in a recent interview that “sport is becoming an investment class.” One of Coventry’s main competitors for the top job, he emphasized the IOC president’s crucial role in negotiating new broadcasting and sponsorship deals.
Coventry will be immediately tasked with navigating the IOC’s relationship with the US, which will host the 2028 Summer Olympics. One likely issue may be the administration’s hardline policy toward women in sports: US President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning transgender people from women’s sports last month that seeks to pressure the IOC into its own ban.