PuraVida Sports

In this fourth and final installment of our interview with Kirsty Coventry, the new IOC President opens up about family life, juggling between raising young children and the heavy task at the IOC. She commits to championing the fight against Gender Based Violence..

By Elias Makori in Costa Navarino, Greece

Kirsty Coventry officially assumes office as International Olympic Committee President on June 23, which is also OIympic Day, commemorating the day in which delegates from 12 nations voted adopt a proposal by Pierre de Courbetin to revive the Olympic Games in 1894.

The 41-year-old decorated swimmer won the vote for the IOC Presidency in Round One with 49 of the possible 97 votes at the 144^th IOC Session in Costa Navarino, Greece, last week, defeating Spain’s favourite Juan Antonio Samaranch Junior (28 votes), World Athletics President and Olympic track legend Seb Coe (eight),  Frenchman David Lappartient and Japan’s Morinare Watanabe (four each) and Swedish-British Johan Eliash and Jordan’s Prince Feisal Al Hussein (two each).

After a hectic campaign season and following her dramatic election as the youngest, the first African and first woman head of the Olympic Movement, didn’t Coventry fancy some time off at the beach or in the spa to celebrate, and let this sink in?

“(laughs) I will be very honest… I said to my colleagues that ‘if the weather was nice here, I would suggest all of us staying behind for a few extra days and enjoying the beach!,” she responded at the luxurious Costa Navarino Resort, a breathtaking holiday resort in the Meditarrenean that hosted the 144^th IOC Session from March 19 to 21.

“I would very much enjoy sitting by the beach, relaxed, but at the same time there’s so much excitement and a lot of adrenalin in this job, with a lot of responsibilities.

“It’s now about taking the time to let this soak in, a little bit, which I still think hasn’t quite settled.”

How does Coventry unwind?

So, just how does the IOC President-elect unwind?

“I don’t do bungee jumping, or sky diving, or any crazy things… I’m very adverse to any of that.. What I like to do is just spend time with my core people – my family.

My family is here (in Costa Navarino) with me – my little baby Lilly and my five-year-old Ella… when I get back to the room, it’s just jumping into bed with them.

I’m excited to get home and see my best friend and my parents, have a glass of champagne with them and just sit.”

And give the tight schedules at the IOC, just how does Coventry balance between work and family? 

“I wasn’t campaigning when I was pregnant with Ella, but I was six or seven weeks pregnant when I was named as (Sports) Minister, and I was still Chair of the IOC Athletes’ Commission on the Executive Board.

In 2017-2018 there were different things being thrown at the IOC Athletes’ Commission that we had to tackle and we had to sit down and we had to embrace and that we had to talk to the global athletes’ community on, so that role was very important.

And then being given a very big role at home (Sports Minister)… I remember going in and telling the President that ‘I’m look forward to potentially working, and I’m not sure you’re gonna like some of my decisions – oh!, by the way, I’m going on maternity leave in six months!’

That experience definitely helped with this (second baby). With your second child – for me at least – I knew what to expect, so my husband and I were not panicking at a little cough-up from the baby… we’d go like ‘wow, we got this!’, pat her on the back and move on.

She’s incredible. Both our kids are – Ella is a little bit older, she’s turning six, and she is so independent, she’s just amazing, and Lilly has just fitted in. She has gone everywhere with me, she has travelled with me since she was four weeks old – that’s where I find my downtime. It’s special for me to be able to go and spend time with her (Lilly) and feed her and have a moment with her and then come back (to work). 

They also remind you what’s important in life, and why we are doing some of the things that we are doing and why we are striving for these things – ultimately at the end of the day to make it easier for them to have access to them, and to believe in a movement (Olympic) that is still gonna be relevant when they get old enough to understand.

Banned from Card Games, Sporting Family

Coventry’s competitive nature at times made her a sore loser growing up, the reason why she was banned from family card games.

“When we had school holidays, we would go to the eastern highlands where a friend of ours had a home. It was a little bit cold and we were staying in a little cottage where there was no TV, at times the lights wouldn’t work so we lit candles, and at times we’d play card games. This is probably when I was under the age of 10… I would win many times and when they thought maybe they should teach me a lesson, I didn’t like that and I was like ‘hang on! I used to be really good at this game, how come now you are beating me all the time!’ and they were like ‘you are not fun to play with, we are just gonna leave you out.’”

Sports runs very much in Coventry’s family…

“My grandfather was a swimming coach and my uncle swam for Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), my dad’s brothers boxed for Rhodesia, my mum and my grandmother played tennis, so we are a very active family… I went to the pool and loved it.

Half the time my parents were trying to get me out of the pool to do homework, come and eat dinner… it was just a natural (sports) environment for me.”

So does her elder daughter Ella swim? After all, the apple always falls close to the tree… 

“She loves swimming, she can do a number of strokes, but she is loving gymnastics and horse-riding at the moment. She saw vaulting and thought that was a good idea and I said ‘noooo’… maybe wait until she’s a little older,” explains Coventry.

“But we are trying to get her into as many sports as we can, but she’s so young.

Part of the reason I had a long career is because I played many sports until I was 14 and then I dislocated my knee on the hockey field and needed to have surgery and that limited the sports I wanted to do and I had to focus on swimming, but I also only swam from 15 years and older.”

Move to Lausanne, Bach Handover

Coventry is currently in Harare, winding up and handing over to newly-appointed Minister for Sport, her replacement, Gen. Anselem Sanyatwe, former Commander of the Zimbabwe National Army.

She will then move to the IOC headquarters city of Lausanne, Switzerland, next month for orientation under outgoing IOC President Thomas Bach.

This is the first time that such a transition has been organized at the IOC.

“I’m grateful to President Bach for having this transition period where all these things can be ironed out and figured out,” Coventry appreciates, noting that travelling across the world and shifting homes is something she and her husband, Tyrone Seward, already had figured out much earlier on.

“When we got married, I was still training – and as a professional athlete you travel a lot – my husband and I made a promise that it didn’t matter where we were, as long as there was the two of us, then that was home.

Obviously, home is Zimbabwe. We always love going home and my parents are there, our families are there, but, ultimately, home is where we are and what we make of it.

We started off (transition with Bach) already this morning, sitting down and sharing ideas on how both of us see the next few months working.

We will work together in taking decisions and we need a little longer for all the other details than we had this morning. 

I’ll be coming to Lausanne in the beginning of April.

Lessons from Her Parents to Her Children

Her two daughters are obviously too young to understand the important role their mother will be playing at the IOC Headquarters.

But she believes they will come of age and appreciate the role the Olympic Movement has played in their lives.

“I want my daughters to be able to grow up and know that they can be whoever they want to be, and to do whatever it is that they want to achieve,” she shares.

“I would like for them to see, and to learn, how when you put your mind to something and have good work ethic, work hard, things are not always gonna be easy, but you must fight for what you want and what you believe in…

And that your integrity is everything and you must make sure you put that at the core of everything.

Both my grandmothers were very strong, independent women and so I had strong women around me for my entire life, my coach as well. 

All of them have never shied away from a challenge.

So it has not been one specific piece of advice from them, but it has been watching how they tacked difficult situations and they have done that in the most eloquent way and in the most powerful way, and I learnt from them and seen how they navigated those challenges.”

Celebrated in Harare, Committed to fighting GBV

In Harare this week, there were celebrations to mark Coventry’s election as IOC President.

Zimbabwe’s President Mnangagwa hosted a celebratory banquet for Coventry saying her victory was a testament that Africa is indeed ready to lead at the highest level.

“You are not only our national treasure but a treasure to the whole of Africa and other developing countries…,” he said and challenged parents and guardians to nurture their respective children to become future champions.

At her foundation, Coventry focused on creating safe spaces for girls, and aware of the challenges sportswomen face, including gender-based violence, she promised to use her new IOC office to champion the fight against such vices.

What are her thoughts on this fight?

“My thoughts are that I will be the biggest advocate (in the fight),” she assures.

“Within the first year of me taking office (as Sports Minister) in Zimbabwe, I had the unfortunate pleasure of sitting with four incredibly strong women, female referees in soccer, who had been badly sexually harassed and abused, and that was for us a moment where we stepped in and dissolved the Zimbabwe Football Federation Board.

This type of behaviour had been going on for a long time – I’m sharing this with you because you know, coming from an African country, the consequences of stepping in and getting involved in that way as a third party – it led to us getting suspended for 18 months (by Fifa).

Someone asked me the other day: Was it a tough decision? No. It was the right decision!

I could not have walked out of that room and not made any other decision, because I didn’t ever wanna sit in a room with any other young woman who had been treated the way that these young women had been. 

And they were strong enough to come forward.

There were so many others who shared their stories through them.

For me, there are certain things that are very close to my heart that I will never tolerate and if a decision needs to be taken in and around those things, we will do whatever we can to support athletes in that way.

The IOC has been doing a number of good initiatives in safeguarding of athletes and now we need to look at these and say, is this adequate? What else can we do? How can we impact at a national level?

It’s great to have safe spaces during the Olympic Games, but when people go home, what happens? How do we try and change cultural norms to say that this is not acceptable anymore?

(Stay tuned for podcast version of Kirsty Coventry’s interview coming up soon on puravidasports.africa)

• elias.makori@ymail.com