After historic Olympic election comes leadership issues for IOC president Kirsty Coventry

COSTA NAVARINO, Greece (AP) — After enjoying a stunning election win comes the sober business of leading the International Olympic Committee for Kirsty Coventry.

The first woman president elected in the IOC’s 131-year history began Friday in a breakfast meeting with Thomas Bach to start their transition. The formal handover is on Olympic Day, June 23.

They agreed Coventry will take precedence in major IOC decisions in the next three months.

The 41-year-old sports minister of Zimbabwe will soon resign her government position and plans to move with her family in April to the Olympic home city, Lausanne in Switzerland.

Here’s a look at some of the issues ahead:

Equality for women

Coventry’s victory is the biggest statement of Bach’s consistent policies to promote women in Olympic sports and politics.

Can the next layer below the IOC — governing bodies of Olympic sports, national Olympic committees — also make progress? “You realize that there is still a lot to do,” Bach said on Friday.

He noted that from next month just one of those sports will have a woman president: IOC member Petra Sörling in table tennis.

Coventry has pledged to protect women’s sports and athletes. She explained on Friday how as the sports minister in Zimbabwe she removed the national soccer federation’s board after women referees reported being sexually harassed.

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It helped to push FIFA to suspend Zimbabwean soccer citing government interference in the sport and she has no regret.

“There are certain things close to my heart that I will never tolerate,” she said.

Coventry wants the IOC to take “more of a leading role” on gender eligibility and will create a taskforce to analyze the issue. The newly recognized World Boxing body, which was not involved in the Paris Olympics, is separately updating its rules this year.

India’s ambition

A win for Coventry looks favorable toward being an ultimate victory for India and its influential IOC member Nita Ambani. The two women are reportedly close.

The Ambani family, the richest in Asia, hosted the IOC annual meeting in 2023 in Mumbai that promoted ambitions for India to host the Summer Games.

A key decision for the Coventry-led IOC is finding a host for 2036. One rival to India is Qatar, whose ruling Emir has been an IOC member for 24 years, and which has been overlooked three times before.

An announcement expected soon is to confirm India’s first top-tier Olympic sponsorship that was all but promised last August in Paris. There, Ambani hosted a hospitality house to promote Indian culture and sports.

There is no set timetable for a decision on 2036. Bach’s signature policy on choosing hosts ended an era of blockbuster campaigns and contested votes.

Now, a favored bid that effectively and discreetly lobbies the IOC can be fast-tracked into exclusive negotiations.

Athlete benefits

It is unclear how and when athletes might get a better deal within the IOC’s strict commercial rules. They have long protected exclusivity for rights-holding Olympic broadcasters and sponsors.

One of Coventry’s beaten election rivals, Sebastian Coe, leads World Athletics. It broke an Olympic taboo by paying $50,000 prize money for track and field champions in Paris last year. In Los Angeles in 2028, silver and bronze medalists also will be rewarded.

Coe said his election pledges for athletes would include “sharing their data, giving them better access to sponsorships, and being more liberal, and making sure the (Olympic) brand was more accessible to them.”

The election runner-up, Juan Antonio Samaranch, promised letting athletes use clips of their Olympic performances and help them be social media influencers.

Coventry did not have those kinds of ideas in her election platform, nor advanced them when she represented athletes on the IOC executive board from 2018-21.

However, she pledged to work with election rivals to see which of their policies can make progress.

Russia return?

There is no obvious path for the IOC to lift its suspension of Russia’s Olympic body while four regional sports councils in eastern Ukraine remain under Russian control.

Still, Vladimir Putin is already working on the new IOC president, offering “sincere congratulations” on her win.

“The results of the vote convincingly attest to your high authority in the sporting world and the recognition of your outstanding personal achievements,” read a statement to Coventry from the Kremlin.

The 2026 Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Games open next February with the IOC excluding Russia from team sports — including Putin’s favorite ice hockey — since the invasion of Ukraine. Individual Russian athletes could compete in Paris last year if they passed vetting as neutrals.

Future presidents?

The next IOC leadership election is in 2033, though the next vacancy with a contested race could be 12 years away in 2037. Coventry would be only 53 on reaching her term limit.

Projecting far into the Olympic future, Tony Estanguet rejoined the IOC membership on Friday aged 46. He has clear potential after organizing the successful Paris Olympics.

If Coventry’s successor is to be a woman, Princess Reema Bandar al Saud could contend. She has been Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States since 2019 and joined the IOC one year later.

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