Kirsty Coventry-female, African, Jung: What does the new IOC President want?

Something has been in motion in world sports since Thursday: For the first time in the 131-year history of the International Olympic Committee, the Rings Order elected an order to the top, for the first time a person from Africa. Swimming Olympic champion Kirsty Coventry from Zimbabwe is also the youngest president after the inventor of the modern Olympic Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who started the office in 1896 at the age of 33.

“This is an extraordinary moment,” said former sports minister Zimbabwes after her election on Thursday on the sidelines of the 144th IOC General Assembly. “I hope that this choice will be an inspiration for many people. I am fully aware of my responsibility as a role model, «said the mother of two, who was born in 1983 in post -colonial Zimbabwe as the daughter of a British businessman and a white Zimbabwerin.

The swimming Olympic champion from 2004 and 2008 has to be patient in terms of IOC presidency until June 24th before she can get started. Coventry had in the first on Thursday Ballot triumphs with the precise majority of 49 votes in 97 eligible voters, but before the leaves of her predecessor Thomas Bach from Germany, the three months are now “the gentle transition” (Bach), in which Coventry is to be introduced to the tasks at the top of the world sport.

Since their election, politicians and international sports leaders have been overturning in their reactions and congratulations addresses, but what the new leader of the world sport really stands for is at least uncertain. Kirsty Coventry, who has been a member of the IOC since 2013, was always acted as a Bach’s desired candidate, but she was considered political pale until Thursday.

“I have had to deal with difficult men in high positions since I was 20.”

Kirsty CoventryTenth IOC President

Your so -called ManifestQuasi her election program, which she published before the general assembly, does not reveal too much concrete projects: she wants to focus on the athletes, whose needs should always be in the foreground, promises the former athlete representative. It wants to integrate the international sports associations even more (and let them share profits from new formats). Young people should never be lost to organized sport: E-sports competitions under the IOC roof are intended to open up new sources of income to the umbrella organization of the World Sports and continue to bind the target group to the Olympic idea.

In addition, Coventry, like her six competitors, wanted to go around the office, who wanted »Olympic Solidarity«Strengths, i.e. those IOC programs with which sport is promoted in poorer nations. The new President wants to drive digitization and the use of AI in sports and trim Olympic cities on sustainability using special CO2 budgets. Olympic Games should no longer shout, even as far as the number of participants is concerned. “Growth for the sake of growth is no longer durable,” she writes.

But of course Coventry will also have to devote itself to the current problems with which its predecessor already had to get around. At her first press conference, she was quite prepared when one of the first questions for the “President Elect” aimed at the next Olympics, which will be held in Los Angeles in 2028. How will the games run under US President Donald Trump? “I had to do with difficult men in high positions since I was 20.” She learned that communication was the key. Trump is a sports lover, he also wanted great games in LA. When it comes to visa -freeness, she made it clear: “We will not deviate from our values ​​that all athletes who have qualified for the Olympics can also participate and feel safe,” she said.

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And what about the gender debate in sports? Since the Olympic Games in Paris and the dispute over the boxers IMANE KHELIF and LIN YU-TING, the minds heat up. Trump has excluded trans people from participation in women’s sports by decree. Coventry said on Thursday that the IOC would use a task force under her leadership. “We will make a clear decision and will not deviate from it,” announced Coventry.

Russia also employs world sports. His athletes are no longer allowed to start under his own flag because of the state -orchestrated doping at Winter Olympia 2014 in Sochi since 2016, the war of attack in Ukraine also plays a role in the Russian sports ban. After Coventry’s election, the Russian sports minister Mikhail Degtjarjow had announced on Telegram, looking forward to returning to Olympic podiums under the new IOC leadership. President Vladimir Putin also “sincerely” congratulated Coventry. The Zimbabwerin was unimpressed and held back. Athletes should not be punished for the politics of her countries, she said, followed by exactly the approach that her sponsor Thomas Bach had always followed.

Kirsty Coventry announced that she and her husband and two children move to Lausanne (Switzerland), where the IOC is based. With the outgoing incumbent, she was sitting at breakfast in Pylos in Greek on Friday. “No decision will be made without the consent of the chosen President,” he announced. In case of doubt, what Coventry wants applies to disagreements. “She doesn’t have to justify herself just because I’m still there.”