Elected in March against six opponents, Kirsty Coventry will become the first woman and first African on Monday at the head of the International Olympic Committee.
Zimbabwean succeeds, only 41 years old, German Thomas Bach.
The seven -time Olympic swimming medalist, younger president of the Olympic body from its founder Pierre de Coubertin, began an eight -year term, before a possible renewal for four years.
His advent at the top of world sport, a reflection of the growing political weight of the old athletes, ‘enormously rejuvenates the CIO and strengthens its legitimacy’, notes with AFP Jean-Loup Chappelet, specialist in Olympism at the University of Lausanne.
The symbol is powerful for an organization long described as a lair of aristocrats, directed for 131 years by Western men – eight Europeans and an American -, but clearly internationalized and feminized under the leadership of Thomas Bach.
Beyond this image issue, the members of the IOC have chosen Kirsty Coventry ‘for its professional qualities and human qualities, at least as important’, thus rented the 71-year-old Bavarian in early June.
If the general public still has to discover it, Zimbabwean, who entered the athletes commission in 2013, is already well known to the Olympic movement, a member of the powerful executive commission and president of the Coordination Commission of the Brisbane OJ-2032.
The genre, priority site?
The transition scheduled at midday promises to be warm, so much Thomas Bach passes to have pushed the ex-champion behind the scenes, has been associating it since March with all its meetings, and then promised not to play the ‘old man’ stubbing around.
After 12 years of reign, the former Olympic Fleuret champion leaves a prosperous house, which has hosts for its Olympic Games until 2034 and secured until 2036 its dissemination agreement with the American channel NBC Universal, crucial for its finances.
Kirsty Coventry will nevertheless have to quickly impose her own brand, she who led a discreet campaign – during which she limited her trips and gave birth to her second daughter – without putting forward concrete proposals.
The former 200 m back will consult the hundreds of CIO members on Tuesday to define ‘a new roadmap’, then chaired the Executive Commission on Wednesday and Thursday, before expressing themselves against the press.
His position will be particularly scrutinized on the re -emergence of gender chromosomal tests to access female competitions, under the leadership of World Athletics in March and then the young World Boxing body at the end of May.
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Pressed with questions on this subject in March, Coventry had promised to ‘protect female athletes’, but without advancing on the admission or exclusion of transgender or intersex athletes: she wanted a ‘working group’ to lead to a ‘common decision’, and is already seen speed by several disciplines.
Less than a year from the 2026 Olympic Games of Milan/Cortina, it will also have to be that the new president decides on the fate of Russian and Belarusses athletes: unless a lasting peace in Ukraine, a limited participation in individual tests, under neutral flag and strict conditions, as in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, seems to be the most likely track.
Diplomatically, Kirsty Coventry will also have to establish a relationship with American President Donald Trump, host of the Los Angeles Olympic Games. ‘Since the age of 20, I have been confronted, say, with difficult men occupying high office,’ joked the former swimmer in March. ‘What I learned is that communication will be the key, and it is something that must happen early’.
In addition to its expected action on the economic model of the IOC and its climate impact, existential subjects for Olympism, the Olympic body will also have to attribute the 2036 summer Olympics, for which the ‘interested parties’ are jostling, from India to South Africa via Turkey, Hungary, Qatar or Saudi Arabia.
/ATS
