LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The first female and first African president of the IOC, Kirsty Coventry, was inaugurated in the role Monday on the organization’s 131st birthday with praise that the Olympic movement was “in the best of hands.”
Coventry, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming for Zimbabwe, finally and formally takes office Tuesday aged just 41 after decisively winning a seven-candidate election in March to succeed Thomas Bach.
Coventry cited her family including her two young daughters as “my rocks, my inspiration” to lead the International Olympic Committee through the next eight years including the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
“You are my constant reminders of why we do what we do every single day,” Coventry said, addressing six-year-old Ella seated near the front of the ceremony
“You are a constant reminder of why this movement is relevant, why it needs to change, why we need to embrace the new ways,” the new president said. “And you will be a constant reminder for many years to come on the decisions that we all take together.”
She thanked her husband, Tyrone Seward, because “you have always stood by my side and never said ‘No.’ And I appreciate that because that is something that doesn’t come very often.”
Coventry, a former swim team standout at Auburn University, said Olympic leaders were “guardians of a platform … to inspire, to change lives, to bring hope.”
Bach’s voice had cracked with emotion minutes earlier as he handed over a symbolic key to the presidency to his protégé in Olympic politics.
The 71-year-old German lawyer, an Olympic champion in team fencing in 1976, leaves after the maximum 12 years in an office he said was now in the “best of hands” with Coventry.
“I believe with all my heart that the Olympic movement is ready for the future,” said Bach, adding he had “given all I could” to the IOC and the games.
The ceremony took place in a temporary building in the gardens of Olympic House designed in the style of the Grand Palais in Paris that hosted fencing and taekwondo at the Summer Games last year.
A steamy, humid day at the IOC’s lakeside modern headquarters saw a sudden downpour of rain minutes before the scheduled start. It forced Bach and Coventry to shelter under a shared umbrella as they walked from the villa that was the former Olympic home.
The hour-long ceremony included a four-minute montage of tributes to Bach, who now becomes the IOC’s honorary president. He has expressed a wish to counsel his successor.
Coventry’s first day at the office will feature a closed-door session to hear the views of around 100 IOC members. They include current and former heads of state, business leaders and billionaires, past and current Olympic athletes, plus leaders of Olympic sports.
In a team photo taken after the handover ceremony, the IOC member who stayed closest to Coventry was Nita Ambani, a member of the richest family in India who is key to the country’s ambitions to host the 2036 Olympics.
Picking the host shapes as one of the biggest decisions during the new president’s first term. Asia seems favored and Middle East neighbors Qatar and Saudi Arabia also are preparing bids in the more flexible and unpredictable process that lets the IOC fast-track a preferred option to avoid a contested vote.
A theme of Coventry’s election opponents — including one of her four IOC vice presidents, Juan Antonio Samaranch — was the members’ wish to be more involved in consultation and decision-making after Bach’s hands-on presidency. Their first chance to air views comes Tuesday.
“It’s an important step to listen and to give people the opportunity to talk,” William Blick, a member from Uganda, told The Associated Press while welcoming the powerful symbol of electing a first IOC leader from Africa who also was a young woman. “It’s a very good way for her to start.”
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
