Sunday, 29 June 2025
Thursday, 20 March 2025
KIRSTY COVENTRY BECOMES FIRST WOMAN AND FIRST AFRICAN TO LEAD INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE
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| Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images Kirsty Coventry was elected as the new IOC president on Thursday |
PYLOS, Greece - Kirsty Coventry was elected president of the International Olympic Committee on Thursday, becoming the first woman and first African to lead the world’s wealthiest multi-sport organization in its 130-year history.
The Zimbabwean needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Thomas Bach, winning an immediate overall majority in the secret ballot with 49 of the available 97 votes.
Coventry beat Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. into second place, the Spaniard winning 28 votes. Britain’s Sebastian Coe, considered one of the front runners in the days leading up to the vote, came third with eight vote.
"Coventry beat Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. into second place, the Spaniard winning 28 votes. Britain’s Sebastian Coe, considered one of the front runners in the days leading up to the vote, came third with eight votes.
The remaining votes went to Frenchman David Lappartient, Jordan’s Prince Feisal, Swedish-born Johan Eliasch, and Japan’s Morinari Watanabe.
"This is not just a huge honour but it is a reminder of my commitment to every single one of you that I will lead this organisation with so much pride," a beaming Coventry told her fellow IOC members at the luxury seaside resort in Greece’s southwestern Peloponnese which hosted the IOC Session.
"I will make all of you very, very proud, and hopefully extremely confident with the choice you've taken today, thank you from the bottom of my heart," she added.
Coventry said she now wants to bring all the candidates together.
"I'm going to sit down with President Bach. We're going to have a few months for a handover takeover. And what I want to focus on is bringing all the candidates together. There were so many good ideas and exchanges over the last six months.
"Look at the IOC and our Olympic movement and family and decide how exactly we're going to move forward in the future. What is it that we want to focus on in the first six months? I have some ideas, but a part of my campaign was listening to the IOC members and hearing what they have to say and hearing how we want to move together."
SHOW OF UNITY
Coventry's first-round landslide was a show of unity in the body, she said.
"It's extremely important we have to be a united front and we have to work together. We don't and we might not always agree, but we have to be able to come together for the betterment of the movement."
A seven-times Olympic medallist , Coventry won 200m backstroke gold at the 2004 Athens Games and again in Beijing four years later.
She was added to the IOC's Athletes’ Commission in 2012, and her election to the top job signals a new era for the IOC, with expectations that she will bring a fresh perspective to pressing issues such as athlete rights, the gender debate and the sustainability of the Games.
A champion of sport development in Africa, Coventry has pledged to expand Olympic participation and ensure the Games remain relevant to younger generations.
She also inherits the complex task of navigating relations with global sports federations and sponsors while maintaining the IOC’s financial stability, which has relied heavily on its multibillion-dollar broadcasting and sponsorship deals.
As she takes the helm, the global sporting community will be watching closely to see how Coventry shapes the future of the world’s biggest multi-sport organisation.
While her election was broadly popular among the IOC family, there was disquiet in some quarters over her links with the Zimbabwean government, for whom she serves as Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts, and Recreation, a position that has raised eyebrows given Zimbabwe's problematic history with political freedoms.
The country has faced sanctions from the United States and the European Union. Coventry's longstanding recognition in Zimbabwe, where she was given a $100,000 award by the former President Robert Mugabe for her success at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, adds further complexity to the situation. Mugabe was in power for 37 years before being overthrown in a military-backed coup in 2017.
Although Coventry has attempted to separate herself from political affairs, her ministerial role and ties with Zimbabwe's leadership continue to be contentious issues as she steps into the leadership of the world's most powerful sports organisation.
On Thursday, though, she was all smiles.
Champion in Athens 2004, victorious again in Pylos -- her golden touch in Greece shows no signs of fading.
"Greece seems to be my lucky charm," she smiled.
- Reuters, editing by Toby Davis and Ed Osmond
Saturday, 22 February 2025
Thursday, 22 August 2024
DANA WHITE TAKES 'FULL RESPONSIBILITY' FOR ERASING FRANCES NGANNOU'S NAMR FRON UFC 305 PRIMOTION VIDEOS AS HE ISSUES APOLOGY
Dana White’s relationship with Francis Ngannou has always been a rocky one, and ahead of UFC 305 this past Saturday, the promotion seemingly cut Ngannou’s name out of the UFC 305 countdown video which didn’t sit well with Israel Adesanya.
At one point, the UFC donned three champions from Africa in Israel Adesanya, Kamaru Usman, and Francis Ngannou, but things went from bad to worse as Usman and Adesanya lost their titles and Ngannou left the promotion.
A few months prior to UFC 305, Adesanya and Dricus Du Plessis took part in an on-sale press conference in which Adesanya commented on the history of African champions, mentioning Ngannou.
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| Photo by Cooper Neill/Zuffa LLC |
Dana White was unaware of the promotion cutting out Ngannou’s name
During UFC 305 fight week, the UFC posted their UFC 305 countdown video in which they used the clip of the former middleweight champion talking about the history of African champions, however, they removed Ngannou’s name from their version of the video.
‘The Last Stylebender’ made it extremely clear at the UFC 305 media day that he wasn’t happy with the promotion for erasing Ngannou’s name from the promotion, stating that ‘you can never erase Francis’ history from the UFC’.
Following another week of Dana White’s Contender Series this past Tuesday evening, the UFC boss was asked about the decision to remove ‘The Predator’s’ name from the promotion, to which he was confused about and didn’t know it had happened.
“If that’s true (that we removed his name) and that was done and it was something we produced, then somebody in the company made that decision. Listen, you know me, if I said we did it, I’d say ‘Yeah f*** him this is why we did it’, I know nothing about it, nobody ever asked me about it and this is the first we’re hearing about it,” Dana White stated at the DWCS post-fight press conference.
Dana White takes responsibility for the removal of Ngannou’s name and apologizes
Despite the initial confusion, following the press conference White and his team discussed the matter and he issued another comment on it.
“My production team are a bunch of rock stars and they are truly f*cking awesome. I make it so hard on them sometimes with some of the crazy sh*t I say and it’s tough. When you (Kevin Iole) asked me about that, I didn’t know anything about it.
“But someone was editing that and made a conscious decision, thinking that was the right thing to do, that that’s what we would have wanted, what I would have wanted. I didn’t know about it and that was nothing that ever came across my desk.
I’m in charge of everything production-related, so at the end of the day, the fact it happened falls on me 100 percent. It’s my responsibility and I accept it. Blame me for that. But that’s on me. Totally on me. I already called Israel Adesanya and apologized for it,” White admitted.
- Jamie Theodosi