- Kirsty Coventry, who will be the first African leader of the IOC, sees inconsistencies in the current approach of singling out Russia while there are conflicts on her own continent.
The incoming IOC president has revealed to Sky News she is against banning countries from the Olympics over wars and will open talks on Russia’s potential return to the Games.
Only Russians competing as neutrals were allowed to take part in Paris 2024 as Moscow was punished for launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Kirsty Coventry will be the first female president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its first African leader.
The former Olympic swimmer, who won two gold medals for Zimbabwe, has said she sees inconsistencies in the current approach of singling out Russia while there are conflicts on her own continent.
Asked a day after her election if she was against banning countries from the Olympics over conflicts, Ms Coventry told Sky News: “I am, but I think you have to take each situation into account.
“What I would like to do is set up a taskforce where this taskforce tries to set out some policies and some guiding frameworks that we as the movement can use to make decisions when we are brought into conflicts.
“We have conflicts in Africa and they’re horrific at the moment. So this is not going away, sadly.
“So how are we going to protect and support athletes?
“How are we going to ensure that all athletes have the opportunity to come to the Olympic Games?
“And our responsibility is also to ensure once those athletes are all there, that they’re safe and that we protect and support them during the Olympic Games.
“So there’s a fine balance. But ultimately I believe that it’s best for our movement to ensure that we have all athletes represented.”
US President Donald Trump has also apparently discussed with Russian leader Vladimir Putin the idea of using sports to heal relations with Russia.
Ms Coventry was congratulated on her IOC election by Putin, who said her “experience and interest in the real advancement of the noble Olympic ideals will ensure your success in such a responsible position”.
While the next Summer Olympics are not until 2028 in Los Angeles, there are fewer than 11 months until the Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.
So will Russia be back by then?
“We’re going to have that discussion with a collective group …with the taskforce,” she said.
Gender eligibility
This interview was taking place a day after her election to the highest job in sport – seeing off six rivals, including Sebastian Coe.
World Athletics – led by Lord Coe – has been exploring whether to introduce swab tests to assess gender eligibility.
A key athletics meeting next week is due to discuss the issue amid concerns about fairness over athletes with differences of sex development and transgender women competing in women’s sport.
The IOC has previously called a return to sex testing a “bad idea”, but Ms Coventry is not ruling it out as she has talked about protecting the female category.
“This is a conversation that’s happened and the international federations have taken a far greater lead in this conversation,” she said in the Greek costal resort of Costa Navarino.
“What I was proposing is to bring a group together with the international federations and really understand each sport is slightly different.
“We know in equestrian, sex is really not an issue, but in other sports it is.
“So what I’d like to do again is bring the international federations together and sit down and try and come up with a collective way forward for all of us to move.”
