Barely an hour after Kirsty Coventry had become the most powerful figure in global sport at the relatively tender age of 41, she faced a series of verbal grenades about how she might handle Donald Trump in her new role.
What would the new president of the International Olympic Committee respond, the first interrogator asked, if the American president tried to cause trouble during the Los Angeles Olympics by banning athletes from certain countries?
Perhaps we should not have been surprised. In the murky world of Zimbabwean politics, Coventry has proved adept at dodging the pitfalls and rising to the top. That ascent started early at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, where she was hailed as Zimbabwe’s “golden girl” by Robert Mugabe after winning three medals in the swimming pool.
The dictator used the same phrase after she won four more medals in Beijing in 2008, but Coventry faced criticism for accepting $100,000 (about £55,000) in prize money on state television at a time when Zimbabweans were suffering hunger as a result of hyperinflation.
But she showed she could also use her position to offer a mild rebuke, stating that: “President Mugabe knows something needs to change because so many people are hurting.”
There was more controversy in 2018, when she became the sports minister in the cabinet of president Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is known as ‘The Crocodile’ for his ruthlessness – and whose democratic credentials are flimsy to say the least.
The British government, for instance, is among those to issue sanctions in a bid to encourage Zimbabwe “to respect democratic principles, refrain from actions, policies or activities which repress civil society in Zimbabwe and to comply with international human rights law and respect for human rights”.
However, Coventry has not distanced herself from Mnangagwa. Quite the contrary. Last year they were even seen dancing alongside each other at a public event in which Zimbabwe said it wanted to bid for the 2027 Cricket World Cup.
Coventry defended her role and actions in government after her victory. “In terms of my country, I chose to try and create change from the inside,” she said. “It gets criticised, and that’s OK, because at the end of the day, I don’t think you can stand on the sidelines and scream for change. I believe you have to be seated at the table.”
One thing is clear. The political skills she has acquired in her home country have proved exceptionally useful at the IOC, an organisation she joined in 2013 and rose rapidly to be Thomas Bach’s chosen successor.
Unlike many of the candidates, she didn’t have an expensive PR team helping her during her campaign. Indeed, her manifesto was written by her and her husband. And the one communications professional who helped her did it for free – and was not even with her in Greece.
But, crucially, she had the patronage of Bach, the formidable and powerful IOC president since 2013. Under his watch, over two-thirds of IOC members voting in the election were appointed. And in the final days pressure was applied to deliver the result he wanted.
The unanswered question now is what happens next. Will it be ‘continuity Bach’, pursuing a top-down and authoritarian approach that allows members little say? Or will she allow a little light into an organisation that desperately needs it? Whatever happens, the next eight years will be fascinating – and challenging.
