Tag: Kirsty Coventry

International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry and her World Anti-Doping Agency counterpart on Tuesday called for unity in the fight against performance-enhancing drugs following a fracture with the United States.

 “Too often we’ve seen energy spent on division, finger-pointing and competing agendas,” Coventry told WADA’s World Conference on Doping in Sport, being held this week in the South Korean city of Busan.  “It has been difficult to watch this divide within our community.”

Her comments came nearly 18 months after an internal investigation cleared WADA of pro-China bias.

The agency was rocked by a scandal involving 23 Chinese swimmers who were cleared of intentionally doping after testing positive for a banned heart drug in 2021.

Chinese investigators absolved the swimmers – some of whom went on to win Olympic gold in Tokyo that year – of wrongdoing, saying that the athletes had been exposed to the drug via a contaminated hotel kitchen.

WADA opted not to independently investigate the matter, sparking criticism, especially from the United States and its anti-doping organisation, USADA.

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Following WADA’s decision, the US government withdrew $3.6 million in funding, resulting in the removal of US representatives from the body’s executive committee.

 “There is only one fight that we should be fighting – and that is the fight against doping,” Coventry told the gathering in Busan.

 “But instead, at times, we have been turning on each other. The only people who benefit from this disunity are the drugs cheaters.”

Taking a similar line, WADA president Witold Banka did not reference any one country by name but said that “some voices have chosen confrontation over cooperation, speaking as if their nations or institutions stand above others, as if only they acted with integrity”.

He added: “To those who behave as though they come from ‘better’ systems, expecting the world to follow their personal crusades, we say respectfully but firmly: no.

 “Anti-doping does not belong to one nation or one personality.”

Kirsty Coventry  has said  that the first meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board under her presidency supported her belief that “we should protect the female category”.

Coventry, who on Monday became the first woman to lead the Olympic movement, had already signalled a change of direction on the politically inflammatory and scientifically complex issue of gender.

On Thursday, after an executive board meeting and also after getting together with “just over 70” members, she said the IOC, which had previously left gender rules and testing to the governing bodies of individual sports, would go ahead with developing a policy.

 “We are going to set up a working group,” she told a press conference. “It was agreed by members that the IOC should take a leading role in this and we should be the ones to bring together the experts, bring together the international federations.”

 “We understand that there will be differences depending on the sport,” she said

She said she hoped to start the working group “within weeks” with the aim of finding “consensus” on a policy.

 “It was very clear we need to protect the female category but we need to ensure fairness but we need to do so with a scientific approach,” she said.

Coventry said when she was elected that even with Games coming up in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City-Utah she had no worries about dealing with United States President Donald Trump.

 “I have been dealing with, let’s say, difficult men in high positions since I was 20 years old,” Coventry said in March.

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Since then relationships between Trump and Los Angeles have become frayed over Trump’s anti-immigration policies. There have also been concerns after Cuban and Senegalese athletes were denied US visas.

 “When it comes to LA there is so much goodwill at all levels of government to see that the Olympic Games are a huge success,” she said, adding that the IOC would not yield to political pressure.

 “The platform will be there to ensure that our values are stuck to,” she said.

 “Our values will be heard and we will be able to ensure successful games for our athletes from around the world.”

Coventry said the IOC planned to set up a second working group looking at how long beforehand Olympic hosts should be named.

Both LA and Brisbane in 2032, had, she pointed out, 11 years of lead time, while the French Alps were only picked as hosts of the 2030 Winter Games in 2024.

 “When is the best time to award?” she asked.

Coventry also said she wanted to increase IOC revenue, reduce costs, make members feel more involved in decision making and use Artificial Intelligence.

Kirsty Coventry smashed through the International Olympic Committee’s glass ceiling on Thursday to become the organization’s first female and first African president in its 130-year history.

The Zimbabwean swimming great, already a towering figure in Olympic circles, emerged victorious to replace Thomas Bach, securing the top job in world sport and ushering in a new era for the Games.

Coventry needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Bach, winning an immediate overall majority in the secret ballot with 49 of the available 97 votes.

She beat Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. into second place, the Spaniard winning 28 votes. Britain’s Sebastian Coe, considered one of the front runners in the days leading up to the vote, came third with eight votes.

The remaining votes went to Frenchman David Lappartient, Jordan’s Prince Feisal, Swedish-born Johan Eliasch, and Japan’s Morinari Watanabe.

“This is not just a huge honour but it is a reminder of my commitment to every single one of you that I will lead this organisation with so much pride,” a beaming Coventry told her fellow IOC members at the luxury seaside resort in Greece’s south-western Peloponnese which hosted the IOC Session.

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“I will make all of you very, very proud, and hopefully extremely confident with the choice you’ve taken today, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

“Now we’ve got some work together and I’d like to thank the candidates — this race was an incredible race and it made us better, it made us a stronger movement.

“I know from the conversations I’ve had with every single one of you how much stronger our movement is going to be.”

The seven-times Olympic medallist joined the IOC’s Athletes’ Commission in 2012, and her election to the top job signals a new era for the IOC, with expectations that she will bring a fresh perspective to pressing issues such as athlete rights, the gender debate, and the sustainability of the Games.

A champion of sport development in Africa, Coventry has pledged to expand Olympic participation and ensure the Games remain relevant to younger generations.

She also inherits the complex task of navigating relations with global sports federations and sponsors while maintaining the IOC’s financial stability, which has relied heavily on its multibillion-dollar broadcasting and sponsorship deals.

As she takes the helm, the global sporting community will be watching closely to see how she shapes the future of the world’s biggest multi-sport organisation.