New IOC president Kirsty Coventry wants sit-down with Donald Trump

Newly elected International Olympic Committee boss Kirsty Coventry has flagged she won’t be intimidated by Donald Trump and wants to sit down with United States president to make sure the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics are successful.

“I have been dealing with, let’s say, difficult men in high positions since I was 20 years old,” Coventry, who is Zimbabwe’s sports minister, said after her election victory. “President Trump is a huge supporter of sport. There’s never been a sitting president that has attended the Super Bowl,”

“He was the president at the time when LA was awarded the Games (in 2017). I truly believe that he wants the LA 28 Games to be a huge success.

“It will take sitting down and having a good conversation with him,” Coventry said adding she believed “sharing with him our values and where we want to be, how we want LA to be successful and being very clear on the different priorities (within the IOC).”

The 41-year-old two-time Olympic swimming champion from Zimbabwe is the youngest person to hold the most powerful position in sports governance. She is also the first woman and first African to be elected IOC president.

“This is an extraordinary moment,” Coventry said. “As a nine-year-old girl I never thought that I would be standing up here one day, getting to give back to this incredible movement of ours.”

Coventry was thought to be in a tight-run race with IOC veteran Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr and World Athletics president Sebastian Coe for the top job.

However, to the race was decided in the first round of voting. Coventry received 49 of the 97 votes possible, with Samaranch obtaining 28 and Coe third with a humbling eight votes.

The LA Games present a major commercial opportunity, with the IOC seeking to create new sources of revenues, and the American market presenting new opportunities with the first summer Olympics in the US in more than 30 years.

Since taking office on January 20, Trump has announced a number of executive orders that focus on stricter border entry requirements, tighter visa vetting procedures and a crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the US.

Several IOC members on Thursday, who said they had long waits for US visas, expressed concerns over entry regulations for athletes travelling to the LA 2028 Olympics, asking US Games organisers for clarifications given Trump’s hardline border policies.

Mr Trump has banned transgender athletes from competing in sports in schools in the US, which civil society groups say infringes on the rights of trans people. Mr Trump has said he would not allow transgender athletes to compete at the LA Games, but the IOC currently allows transgender athletes to take part in the Olympics.

Mr Trump’s executive order also instructed the State Department to pressure the IOC to change its policy, which allows trans athletes to compete under general guidance preventing any athlete from gaining an unfair advantage.

The IOC in 2021 urged each of its federations to draw up their own gender participation rules, so there is no one universal rule for sport. Ms Coventry said the federations would need to resolve the matter.

“What we need to do ... is bring the international federations together and the IOC, and try to take a joint decision on how we will protect the female category,” Ms Coventry said.

When asked if clear guidance would be issued prior to next year’s Milano-Cortina winter Games to avoid a dispute similar to the one that overshadowed the Paris 2024 Olympics over the participation of two female boxers, she said it was something that needed to be looked at.

“I need to have the next few days to see how things line up. But when we look at it and sit down we will come up with a timeline,” Ms Coventry said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Coventry on her election, saying it was “proof of your high authority in the sporting world”, while sports minister Mikhail Degtyaryov said on Telegram he hoped it would lead “to Russia returning to the Olympic podium”.

She takes over from outgoing president Thomas Bach on June 24.