Who is the next president of the IOC and why their ties with the Zimbabwean government make concerns? – Firstpost

Sports history was made on Thursday when the former Zimbabwe swimmer, Kirsty Coventry, was elected president of the next president of the International Olympic Committee (CIO), making her the first woman and African to occupy the coveted post.

Coventry, who will start his eight -year term in charge of the IOC in June, is the most decorated Olympian in Africa and Minister of the Government of Zimbabwe who has often been accused of oppression of the political opposition.

Coventry’s illustrious sports career

Coventry was the consecutive Olympic champion at 200 meters in 2004 and 2008. She retired from swimming after the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2016 with seven Olympic medals, more than anyone from Africa.

At that time, she was already a member of the IOC, obtaining her place in 2013 almost a year after a first result of an election of athlete at the London Olympic Games was partially canceled because she filed a complaint against an opponent.

Coventry is also currently the Minister of Youth, Sports, Arts and Leisure of Zimbabwe, drawing a meticulous examination of his affiliation with a government which has long faced accusations of reprimanding democratic freedoms and removing criticism in the country of southern Africa.

Her country and the government in which she served were targeted with sanctions by the United States and the European Union.

At the height of his swimming career, Coventry was congratulated and rewarded with a diplomatic passport and $ 100,000 by the late Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, an autocratic leader who ruled his country for 37 years until he was removed in a coup to support the army in 2017.

The increase in Coventry in Zimbabwe policy has surprised a lot

Mugabe called his “Golden Girl” of Zimbabwe, and it was widely rented through racial lines as a source of pride in his country at a time when he was in shock from Mugabe’s policy to violently grasp the agricultural land of the Whites.

Coventry became the Minister of Sports a year after the coup who withdrew Mugabe in the new administration of the current president Emmerson Mnangagwa, vice-president of Mugabe, the rights defense groups, continued numerous oppressive policies of Mugabe.

Coventry was only 34 years old when she was appointed Minister of Government in a decision that was welcomed with surprise because she was young and had little political experience, but also because she is white. She was renamed Minister of Sports after challenging the elections in 2023.

She declared Thursday in a press conference of the victory which she would probably resign as Minister of Sports of Zimbabwe and will move full time to the hometown of IOC, Lausanne, in Switzerland.

Coventry’s sporting work in Zimbabwe has been examined

Coventry frequented a school of convents for girls in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. She went to the University of the University of Auburn in Alabama and has become one of her star swimmers. She made her Olympic debut in Sydney in 2000 when he was still in high school. She won three medals at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games and four medals at the 2008 Beijing Games.

From 2018 to 2021, Coventry was the representative of the athletes of the board of directors of the IOC under Thomas Bach, the man she was elected to succeed. Coventry left groups of frustrated athletes to have followed the political line of the IOC and Bach too closely.

Coventry’s efficiency as a sports manager in his country of origin has been questioned by some. Zimbabwe has been forbidden to welcome international football matches by the African Confederation since 2020 because it has no stadium that meets the required standard.

During Coventry’s first press conference as the next IOC president, the Zimbabwe male team played a “home” match in a World Cup qualification group in 2026 in Durban in neighboring South Africa because of its stadium problems.

Zimbabwe was also temporarily suspended from international football by the body of world FIFA in 2022 due to the government’s interference. Zimbabwe was authorized to return to international football in 2023.

With agency entries