In the International Olympic Committee’s 131 year history, only a handful of men have led the organization behind the world’s largest sporting event. On March 20, 2025, Zimbabwean Olympian Kirsty Coventry joined their ranks, having been elected in the first round of voting at the 144th IOC Session.
This is the first time we as a podcast have gone through an IOC presidential election, so it was all very exciting for us. Seven candidates (six of whom were men) vied for the top job: HRH Feisal Al-Hussein, Lord Sebastian Coe, Kirsty Coventry, David Lappartient, Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr, Johan Eliasch, and Morinari Watanabe.
A lot of speculation swirled around who would be elected. Samaranch, Coe and Coventry rose to the top of the field, with some (ahem, the British press) thinking that Lord Coe would prevail. BetOnline.net gave him +150 odds, but put Coventry in fifth at +600.
Coventry would defy those odds and take the win in just one round of voting (experts had also thought there would be two or three rounds). Here’s how the voting broke out:
Once he found the right page, the celebrations could begin.
We know that Kirsty Coventry is a 5x Olympian from Zimbabwe, but what’s her background, how did she get involved with the IOC, and what sort of a leader will she be for the organization for the next eight years? She’s got a lot of challenges in front of her: The Russia situation, transgender women at the Games, reaching a bigger global audience, an event that is ballooning to unprecedented (and perhaps unsustainable) sizes, and more.
In our episode this week, we take a deep dive into her life and work to try to answer these questions, and gain an understanding for what could be in store for the Olympics.
Also, the sliding track in Cortina is functioning (but not yet finished). We have the latest update on the initial testing. Milano Cortina 2026 will have another Olympics ticket drop on April 8. Tickets for the Paralympics are still continually on sale.
LA 2028 announced some venue changes at the IOC Session, which included moving some sports out of Los Angeles and into neighboring cities (or Oklahoma). They’ll have more announcements in April about the event program and ticketing.
Brisbane 2032 seems to have missed the Agenda 2020 and Agenda 2020 + 5 memos and announced a slew of new construction and major refurbishment for venues for its Games.
Plus, we have updates on French Alps 2030 and Salt Lake City 2034.
In our visit with TKFLASTAN, we have updates from:
- Race walker Evan Dunfee
- Snowboarder Chloe Kim
- Track cyclist Mandy Marquardt
- Friends of the show John Cushing and Michael Weadock from Anything But Footy
- MDerek Leung
- Fencers Magda Skarbonkiewicz, Hadley Husisian and Lauren Scruggs
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo: (c) International Olympic Committee
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
385-New IOC President Kirsty Coventry
Theme Music
Jill Jaracz: Hello and welcome to another episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. If you love the games, we are the show for you. I am your host, Jill Jaracz. Joined as always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown.
Alison, hello. How are you?
Follow-up from ISU World Figure Skating Championships
Alison Brown: Did I blind you with my beauty for a second there?
I was still all sparkly from the world championships, so maybe that’s what did it.
Jill Jaracz: Speaking of sparkly, I was randomly on X ’cause I [00:01:00] don’t spend a whole lot of time on there anymore, even though we are at Flame and Life Pod on X if you choose to follow us there and, and if you interact with me, I’ll go on a little more often, but, I did notice that the ISU had figure skating awards pictures up and you had talked about, Olivia Smart and Tim DE’s costume for their, program, their Dune program.
Alison Brown: The costume won best costume designed by, uh, Madison Chalk and Matt Koran who had the exhibit that I’m putting together a video of. That’s right. So this is not a surprise. And the co that costume was super impressive. It had a hood, it had, just this really interesting fabric they really took, did look like sand on the ice.
Jill Jaracz: Interesting. ’cause it was completely different. Yes. I was impressed that Madison Chalk is getting in on the costume game. Good for her two [00:02:00] in the pictures. I totally could see what you were saying about it looks better on the ice. Yes. In the pictures it’s a little flat. It does remind me some of, some of, Charlie White Meryl Davis’s costumes as well. ’cause they really went in on interpreting the music through their costumes too.
Alison Brown: the one thing about that costume though, in person, her skin, hair, and costume are kind of all the same color.
Wow. Which worked great for the program because then she sort of had almost a creature quality, like the sand worms if you know the dune story.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, cool. So
Alison Brown: it was, but goodness, if you haven’t seen that program, the costume is the least of it.
Jill Jaracz: On my list.
Join us on Substack (for free)
Jill Jaracz: Also on my list is, uh, looking at our substack for this week.
’cause I’m excited you are doing a deep dive on the costume stuff
Alison Brown: and it’s taken a while, so I apologize. It is gonna be a, a day later than usual because just trying to get all the [00:03:00] pictures. ’cause I wanna make sure that you get all the pictures. I am doing a deep dive on the rhythm dance costumes, speaking of ice dance and gonna have a ton of pictures that ISU was kind enough to share with us.
But yeah, so that’s, that’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of fun to be able to do things with the newsletter that we can’t do on the show because it’s not a visual medium.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right. If you are on Substack, you can find our newsletter there. We have moved our newsletter to the Substack platform. You can get the posts via email on the Substack website or via the Substack app or.
Newsletter is still free, so be sure to sign up for it. Uh, you’ll get Alison’s excellent articles every week and they shed more light onto our weekly episode topics. So you can sign up@flamealivepod.com, go down to the bottom to the newsletter, sign up or find us on substack at flame alive pod.substack.com.
Kirsty Coventry, new IOC President
Jill Jaracz: Okay. A little long and coming for us to weigh in on the new [00:04:00] IOC President. But we have a new IOC President for the next eight years.
Alison Brown: Get used to saying Madame President
Jill Jaracz: at the 144th IOC session in Costa Navarino, Greece membership elected Kirsty Coventry as the 10th president of the International Olympic Committee.
Its fourth athlete president and the first female to lead the organization. Today we’re doing a deep dive into K Cos K Cov.
Alison Brown: It’ll come, you know, just like Tebo just sort of developed. Yeah, you can’t force these kind of nickname
Jill Jaracz: things. I know I kind of like Caco, but that also reminds me of like a Japanese name or something.
I don’t know, was,
Alison Brown: wasn’t there the name of some talking Ape that was like Caco? I
Jill Jaracz: don’t know if listeners if you know, help us out, but we’re doing a deep dive into Kirsty Coventry and her background and some things she’s done on the IOC already to try to figure out what type of president she’ll [00:05:00] be over the next eight years.
So. I spent a lot of time looking at Kirsty’s life, a lot of science You did. I’ve seen your notes. Uh, Kirsty Coventry was born in 1983 in Hara, the capital of Zimbabwe.
Rhodesia, Zimbabwe and the Olympics
Jill Jaracz: So at the time she was born, Zimbabwe is about 8.5 million people. So now it’s about 17 million people. Pretty small country still in terms of population.
her parents owned a chemicals company in suburban Newlands. They had a comfortable living, comfortable enough to own a pool, but Kirsty, grew up saying she knew she was privileged and lucky to have what she had, but she wasn’t super rich. So traveling around to other countries and, and doing a lot of sporting things in other countries the way some other, people could not in the Coventry budget.
She does come from a sporting family. Her grandfather was chairman of the swimming board and her parents were also [00:06:00] avid swimmers. Her uncles swam and boxed for Rhodesia. Now Rhodesia, we’re gonna talk a little bit about Rhodesia for a little minute. that’s gonna give some context to the situation that she grew up in.
So Rhodesia is what Zimbabwe was called when it was a British colony. It’s colonial and white rule started in 1893 of the land Whites made up about 7% of the population, but they did run the country much like South Africa and other colonial regimes in 1965, where post World War ii, and this is when a lot of African nations are going through decolonization and Prime Minister Ian Smith, who was white man.
Went rogue and declared independence from the UK without getting British parliamentary authorization. So
Alison Brown: sounds like our kind of guy.
Jill Jaracz: Well, in a way, uh, he does keep [00:07:00] minority white rule in place, which means, black people are really discriminated against and they’re, majority of the people in country, in the country are just mired in poverty.
Okay. Definitely not
Alison Brown: our kind of guy.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, definitely not, definitely not. Uh, but I, I do love when anyone just goes rogue. Not, not the greatest, but it is always fun when you’re like, Hey, uh, so Britain said that move was illegal and that sparked a lot of international outrage, economic sanctions, and for athletes, no Olympics.
So Rhodesia had competed at Amsterdam 1928 and they competed at Tokyo 1964, but they were not allowed to go to Mexico City, 1968. The IOC did not recognize an independent Rhodesia, and the UN had asked countries to not recognize Rhodesian passports. So Mexico City said, okay, you’re not coming. In 1971, IOC [00:08:00] membership ruled that Rhodesia could compete at Munich, 1972, but they had to use British uniforms, compete under the Union, Jack, and use God, say the queen for an anthem.
How’d that go? Don’t know, because in 1972, African nations threatened to boycott if Rhodesia was there. So this caused all sorts of drama at the IOC session ahead of the games and membership voted 36 to 31 to rescind Rhodes’s invitation two days before the start of Munich, 1972.
Alison Brown: It didn’t go so well.
Jill Jaracz: No.
So could Rhodesia get back into the IOCs? Good graces, it would take a while. In 1975, an IOC contingent went to Rhodesia to inspect its sporting facilities and organizations, and what they found led them to expel the Rhodesian Olympic Committee by a 41 to 26 vote.
Alison Brown: So this sounds very similar to the history of South Africa [00:09:00] and the Olympic movement.
Jill Jaracz: In a way. In a way, yeah.
Alison Brown: That we have very similar situations with post-colonial discrimination. Not that Colonial was so great, but particularly in a very, Public and brutal way.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. And so in the meantime, civil War is going on in the country and it’s not gonna end until 1980 when the white LED government was stymied by recession and sanctions in the toll of war.
So that led to the birth of Zimbabwe as an independent nation, and they were born through an agreement that allowed majority rule. So now we’re going to ouster the white government majority rule, and hopefully we’ll get some more economic parody between races. Robert Mugabe wins the fir country’s first elections.
Zimbabwe’s allowed back into the games just in time for 1980 Moscow. That is where. The women’s hockey team [00:10:00] won gold, remember? ’cause they were Oh, that’s
Alison Brown: right, because there were all those countries that didn’t go. And then Zimbabwe just sort of stumbled in to the, oh yes.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. they get back into the Olympics, they get golden glory.
And then the country has competed in every summer game since then. And they also hit a skier at Sochi 2014.
Kirsty Coventry – Early life
Jill Jaracz: So let’s go back to Kirsty Coventry
Alison Brown: and her family. So she’s born right after they’re welcomed back in. I mean, this is the world that, that she’s growing up in.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And she’s also growing up in a newly independent nation, one that has majority rural, majority race, rural.
And as a white woman from a white family, I. it’s a tough time for her family. So after minority rule ended, there’s an exodus of white people leaving the country. Kirsty’s parents did not go. They had a company they wanted to stay. So she’s in this massive [00:11:00] time of transition. Needless to say, she seemed to grow up okay.
Mom taught her how to swim at age two, and at age six she asked to join a swim club. And the cool thing about this, her parents seemed very even keeled about the whole situation. They said, okay, you can join a club because we want you to make friends and have fun. And Kirsty ended up having a competitive streak.
So she hated to lose. And when she hated to lose, she put more effort into her training ‘
Alison Brown: cause she didn’t wanna lose. She saw the connection.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. But the nice thing is her parents made sure she was a gracious loser if she won. So they instilled that into her. They also were firm believers in coach, got a coach, and coach was like, parents got a parent.
So if Kirsty needed parenting, coach would send her over to parents and the parents would send her over to coach for pretty much anything swimming related. so there was none of that overstepping boundaries, which was, seemed to be a really good thing in her [00:12:00] development. What what Kirsty didn’t know was how bad she had it as a swimmer in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe at the time, swimming was a white person sport, and the team eventually went on tour in South Africa and Europe and that was the first time Kirsty experienced a real pool.
Alison Brown: A real pool.
Jill Jaracz: So what were pools in Zimbabwe like? They only had outdoor pools. No indoor pools. None of them were heated so they could not swim four months out of the year because it was too cold.
The kids would often have to check the pool for frogs and frog eggs before practice,
you’re not dealing with the best facilities in Zimbabwe. But Kirsty saw these other pools and she’s like, I would like to swim better so that I can go swim in nice pools. And she said that seeing what, how the other half lived and being from Zimbabwe helped her learn how to focus on solutions and not problems [00:13:00] and become a goal-oriented person, which I thought was really interesting that you, that’s how you choose your mindset to be.
At eight or nine, Kirsty told her parents she was gonna win a gold medal at the Olympics. So this may have been about 1992, Barcelona Zimbabwe sent 19 people to the games, including four swimmers, but the best any swimmer finished was 38th. So it, she probably didn’t even see anybody on tv maybe, but maybe not.
So she backed up this prediction with an appearance on TV due to her successes in the pool. And her talent caught the eye of some US colleges along the way, particularly Auburn University, which started recruiting her at age 16 and, and she’s in high school at this point, going to Dominican Convent High School, co-head coach of Auburn, Kim Bracken, uh, reminisced with NBC sports about Coventry.
Kirsty Coventry – Sydney 2000
Jill Jaracz: When she was elected to the IOC. Coach Bracken said that Coventry was super [00:14:00] kind, but very, very shy. And the family was very welcoming and behind her and wanted to her to be in the best place. age 17, Kirsty’s still in high school, made her first Olympic team not bad, competed at Sydney, 2000 in the 50 and 100 meters freestyle the hundred meter back and the 200 meter, IM, her placements ranged from 13th place to 36th, but she was the first Zimbabwean swimmer ever to get into the semifinals.
And
Alison Brown: man, did she get to see some of the greats right. At Sydnee? I mean, we’re gonna talk about this in some, in when we, when we get to swimming in our Sydney 2000 episodes. But what a first games for her at such an age. Right?
Kirsty Coventry at Auburn University
Jill Jaracz: Right. She got an Olympic solidarity scholarship to help her get to Auburn, which had better coaches and training facilities and competition.
Alison Brown: No frogs.
Jill Jaracz: No frogs, and that Olympic solidarity element is gonna be really [00:15:00] important to her. And, uh, she said that she couldn’t go to the games without it.
She would never have been able to become an Olympian without having Olympic solidarity money. going to college was her first time in the United States. Interesting that, I wonder what she thought of Alabama at the time, being from Zimbabwe and going to Alabama.
Alison Brown: Oh, don’t ask me that question.
Jill Jaracz: it was also her first time really swimming with a team in a team atmosphere.
And apparently they didn’t have team on team competition the same way in Zimbabwe. So she learned a lot about teamwork at Auburn. One of the big stories that came out was she was a backstroker. The team didn’t need another backstroker, but they did need somebody to swim the 400 Im for the national title, for the team national title.
And she didn’t want to, she eventually relented. Her performance in that race helped Auburn win the title, and she [00:16:00] learned a life lesson with the realization that what the team was trying to achieve was more important than individual goals. And ironically, the 400 Im became one of her best events.
So while at Auburn, the team had three national championships. Coventry had seven national titles, 25, all American Honors, and was named SEC Swimmer of the Year. And she also competed at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. She won gold there and after she won the medal, of course she’s getting a lot of press and she was pressured to comment on the increasingly difficult racial 10 tensions going on in Zimbabwe at the time.
And all Kirsty would say was that her parents and sister were going through some hard times. And for white people, times were very tough and the government was fueling a lot of anti-white racism that was rearing its ugly head. white people and British supporters were enduring racial insults, threats, extortion, rape, and torture.
[00:17:00] And murder. Murder. So. Even with all that going on, and that’s probably stress, underlying stress in the background. Kirsty said she was very proud to be a Zimbabwean standing atop the podium and getting to hear her national anthem, which was really interesting. And not everybody felt the same way.
Kirsty Coventry and protests
Jill Jaracz: So other athletes in Zimbabwe were pressuring Coventry to protest, namely Cricket players, Henry Longa and Andrew Flower, they wore black arm bands on the field of play during the 2003 Cricket World Cup to protest against President Mugabe.
They wanted Coventry to do the same thing, but she opted not to because she said that if she had protested, she might not get to continue to swim. Which is what she loved doing. And it turns out that the other two fled the country after they protested. Oh, there’s a
Alison Brown: shocker.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. So she made the choice to use [00:18:00] her swimming to bring attention to the country and give a different perspective.
And she thought that brought the same results as a field of play protest would break, which is an interesting perspective. Does it? Don’t know.
Alison Brown: and spoiler alert, we’re gonna keep hearing this issue. Yeah. For the rest of your, your story. Right.
Kirsty Coventry – Athens 2004
Jill Jaracz: So two years later she goes to Athens 2004, brought home the first individual medals in Zimbabwe’s history.
What you love these full sets.
Alison Brown: I do love a, I do love a set
Jill Jaracz: gold in the 200 meter backstroke silver in the 100 meter backstroke, which she lost to. USA is Natalie Coughlin. So that can put you into what timeframe we’re in. And then, bronze in the 200 meter. I am behind, uh, Ukraine’s, Ana Klo Cova and American Amanda Beard.
Alison Brown: Oh, wow.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: These are fun names to hear again.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Who was not in the audience to watch her achievements? The Zimbabwean Minister of Sport who was [00:19:00] banned from traveling in Europe at the time as part of sanctions against President Robert Mugabe, who was proving to be a corrupt anti-white dictator who brought Zimbabwe into economic ruin.
Oopsies. Yeah. So. Coventry comes home to a massive celebration with thousands of black Zimbabweans cheering for her. It’s, which is kind of a big deal when you’re talking about the tensions and the ra, the racial tensions that are going on at the time. Uh, there were also traditional dancers, tribal drummers, and the presidential motorcade on a two hour live TV broadcast.
President Mugabe gave her $50,000 in pocket money and a diplomatic passport for life. That’s a big pocket. It’s a big pocket. Craig Lord riding for swimming world said Mugabe also had some faint praise for her at her homecoming parade in State House reception saying Coventry represented quotes efforts, underlining some degree of [00:20:00] discipline efforts that produce some habits.
Thanks Bobby. So with all of the attention on her, one might think that Kirsty would have some thoughts about the political situation in the country, but she said at the parade, I think every country goes through good years and bad years. I hope this meaning her success gives Zimbabwe hope and that they can take something good out of it all sportsmen and sports and women can take inspiration from it and know that they too can follow their dreams.
End quote. Put a pin in that. We’re gonna talk about that. Yeah.
So now we have talk about her being used as a political pawn. Not the first time this is gonna happen, but she’s still not going to say anything that’s gonna put her family into harm or herself. And we gotta remember that she’s 21 years old at the time and. Personally, I think we put a lot on, uh, there are athletes who wanna use their platform to speak out, and there are athletes [00:21:00] that don’t.
And I think that there’s some kind of expectation that because you have a platform, you must speak about something. And, and I’m not sure that’s the case. And for Coventry, it’s, it’s really what she’s not saying is a big deal. she did say at the time about her big celebration that it was very, very overwhelming.
I felt so much pride, seeing how much it meant to so many people. It really brought no tears. It really brought tears to my eyes. There were no political issues, there were no racial issues. Everything was put aside for a few days so people could celebrate. It was so nice to meet so many people, all happy for the same reason.
Hopefully it will carry on like that, and that’s one of the things the Olympics does.
Alison Brown: Spoiler alert. Again, it does not carry on like
Jill Jaracz: that. No, and that’s also the problem with the, you know, we get that hope for the Olympics and then life goes back to usual. But you have that hope for a few days and, somebody, you, you reach somebody or a few people and push them to make [00:22:00] change.
Kirsty Coventry-inspired baby names
Jill Jaracz: Coventry’s Metal Hall also inspired the nation’s new parents to pay tribute to her. Oh, how many Kirsties are there? pretty quickly we had new babies, Kirsty Coventry, ma Parisa, and Kirsty Coventry Coba. other Coventry and swimming inspired baby names of that year included three medals, Chino Timba, A swimming pool, Naga Freestyle Z Breaststroke, Moda Butterfly, Macha Backstroke, Banda Gold Medal, Zulu Gold winner, Mambo Gold, silver, bronze, Lovo, and Individual Medley.
Moba boa.
Alison Brown: What was the backstroke one again? Backstroke. Backstroke Banda. Backstroke. Banda. Sounds like a fabulous swim themed bar.
Jill Jaracz: I saw
Alison Brown: that and thought you will love this [00:23:00] detail.
What not to name your child breast stroke.
Jill Jaracz: Who know? I know, I know. And the funny thing is, is that all of these people are now kind of Olympic age. I tried, are we gonna see
Alison Brown: breast stroke RDA in the games?
Jill Jaracz: I don’t think so. I tried to look up a few of these, but I could not find any other references for them.
So I don’t know if they’re swimming at all.
Alison Brown: It’d be really sad if, if Backstroke Banda is like a hockey player.
Kirsty Coventry – Beijing 2008
Jill Jaracz: Uh, uh, I, you know, they weren’t sports man. That’d be good. But if, you know, you can have backstrokes in hockey, I guess if you, um, anyway, Kirsty goes back to Auburn. She graduated in 2006 with a bachelor’s in hotel restaurant. Hotel and restaurant management.
She moved to Austin, Texas to train there for Beijing 2008. At Beijing she does even better. She qualified for four events, won four medals, a gold in the 200 meter backstroke, [00:24:00] silvers, and 100 meter back. 200 Im and 400 am and is Africa’s most decorated Olympian by far at this point. You know, Zimbabwe’s got like eight medals in their history and Kirsty’s got seven of them.
I was gonna
Alison Brown: say, is it all? Kirsty
Jill Jaracz: Coventry? Uh, again, she brings hope too and hopefully sheds light on a nation with a lot of problems at this time. Mugabe is accused of fixing elections through intimidation and violence. Inflation is at 2000000%. So if you are worried about the price of eggs today in America.
Think about 2000000% inflation and yeah. That’s
Alison Brown: one of those situations where they talk about how the price changes from the time you pick up the item to the time you get to the cash register.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And needing bags and bags of money to just pay for anything. It was, it was such a weird time.
unemployment is about 80%, life expectancy is 39.73 [00:25:00] years.
Alison Brown: Wow.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. country is also feeling facing ruling blackouts at the time, except for the magically don’t happen. And there is electricity when Kirsty is swimming so that the whole nation can watch.
So for these medals, president Mugabe called her golden girl and gave her $100,000 in a suitcase. Not great optics at the TI because at the time you’re dealing with economic devastation. So of course there’s so much backlash about her taking this money. But again, she’s a white woman in dealing with this dictator now who you take the money so you don’t make them angry.
it’s kind of interesting. I see the parallels to today in America and in the federal government, a lot of people are losing their positions and in the beginning of all the Doge stuff, they had the option of taking a buyout. So there were people who decided, I’m not doing this.
I’m going to [00:26:00] take the buyout and protest what the government is doing. Other people said, doubled down and said, I’m staying with the government. I. And doing what I can to prove that civil servants are good workers. And I think either answer is correct for your situation. And I think Kirsty is facing similar things a similar situation, I wouldn’t say exactly parallel, but you’re making choices about how you’re going to act in a society where no matter what you choose, I think you’re gonna get backlash either from the media and people or from the government and which is going to harm you more.
Alison Brown: You know, I remember Katarina vet after the fall of the Berlin Wall, faced very similar scrutiny because she was seen as very close to the East German regime prior to, to the reunification of Germany. And I think a, I know a lot of Romanian athletes had that same. Issue in that, in that time period where it’s not just, it was a communist regime, it was, you know, a really brutal [00:27:00] dictatorship.
And how do you navigate that when you are a star and you need the government to let you out of the country, but do you, you know, how do you balance that? What’s good for me? What’s good for the rest of the world? What’s good for my family? What’s good for the rest of the people? And it’s very easy for us to say, you should have done this, you should have done that.
But until you’re there, you don’t know what you would do. You can sit there and say very quickly, oh, I would never, you know, let mugabi give me government, uh, give me money when everyone else is starving. Talk to me when you’ve given that, that choice.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right. And of course you’re also not living permanently in the country, so how do you, what perception is there of that too?
I don’t know. I mean, she would spend quality time at home. There was something I read about her when she was trading for Beijing and she went, her, her coach was not thrilled about her, like spending [00:28:00] all of December at home because she wasn’t, she was gonna have pool access, but it wasn’t gonna, but that pool had frogs.
Yeah. Yeah. So she had a lot of dry land workouts there and, and they were like, well, we hope this works. And, just the, the balance of her being Zimbabwean and being Zimbabwean in her country and being Zimbabwean, but a resident somewhere else.
Alison Brown: Don’t worry. People who are anti Kirsty Coventry, we’ll get to that.
Kirsty Coventry – London 2012
Jill Jaracz: So, uh, Beijing 2 0 0 8 is, peak Coventry, but she’s continues to compete. luckily, even though in 2009, Zimbabwe’s cricket team was banned from touring England in protest of Mugabe’s regime, Zimbabwe was still allowed to compete at London 2012, ’cause that turned out to be kind of a story item and a, and a kind of a big deal.
But, turned out to be okay for her. She was, the country’s flag bearer for the opening ceremonies, but did not place higher than [00:29:00] sixth in that games. ahead of London, she got injured and spent most to 2010 away from the pool, and that hurt her competitions. Well, well, during these games, like they, all of them, they have, elections for the Athletes Commission, the IOC Athletes Commission.
She got elected along with one Tony Tonge.
Kirsty Coventry’s wedding
Jill Jaracz: Other fun fact from her time at London, she got engaged to her boyfriend and manager, Tyrone Seward. They got married in 2013. According to all Africa, her Ebola or bride price was one cow and two chickens, no cash. I, I know it sounds bad. This bride price thing sounds bad, but Kirsty wanted a traditional wedding and she told the Harold, which out out of Zimbabwe or African era area, that Ebola was a centuries old Southern African tradition where a man can prove to her bride’s family that he can support the bride.
It also unites the families and insurers. They’ll get to see each other at least [00:30:00] once a year.
Alison Brown: There are all kinds of sexist traditions around weddings. I mean, let’s not harp too much on the bride price, and it doesn’t sound, I mean, what was it? One cow, two chickens. Yeah, it’s not bad. I hope I’m worth at least two chickens.
And you know it with the price of eggs right now.
Kirsty Coventry – Rio 2016
Jill Jaracz: So Kirsty told the press in 2012 that that was her last games. Exactly. She lied. In 2014, she decided to return. She qualified for Rio at age 32. She’s flag bearer again. she competed in just two backstroke events, placed 11th in the hundred meter and sixth in the 200 meter. she retired, leaving the sport, still loving it, which was very important to her.
And according to NBC, it was this year that she confided in coach Kim Bracken that she wanted to be IOC President one day. Help grow the [00:31:00] organization. So I think those seeds came pretty early on comparatively. ’cause she’s still, she’s not yet president of the Athletes Commission, but she’s involved in the Athletes Commission pretty heavily.
Kirsty Coventry’s work on the IOC Athletes’ Commission
Alison Brown: I mean, just the fact that she joins the Athletes Commission in 2013 is when the the tenure actually begins, even though the election is in 2012, it’s 2025, she’s 41 years old, and she’s the president. I mean, let’s not diminish the ambition on this woman and the, the single-minded goal to get that far, that fast
Jill Jaracz: mm-hmm.
In a world where many of the senior leaders don’t want to step down.
Alison Brown: Right. Allowing the youngsters. A seat at the table is not how the IOC does things.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Well,
Alison Brown: a lot of places don’t do things like
Jill Jaracz: that. Yeah, I do.
Alison Brown: Absolutely. The IOC is not unique in being an old boys club.
Jill Jaracz: so by the time she retires from [00:32:00] swimming, she’s already really deep into working with the IOC. she was elected Chair of the Athletes Commission in 2018 that gave her a seat on the IOC Executive Board, which she held until 2021. Once this term was over, she stepped down from the Athletes Commission, was elected as a regular member of the IOC and then Reg reelected to the executive board in 2023.
So she’s had a fair amount of high level experience as a member of the IOC. On the Athletes Commission, she played a significant role in developing the commission’s new strategy, which was to empower athlete participation in the Olympic movement decision making process, and support athletes’ development in their non, in their sporting and non-sporting career.
So we’ve seen this before where like, athletes 3, 6, 5 comes into play and there’s a lot more of what are you doing post athletic career, things going on that’s been developed. during this time, the Athletes Commission [00:33:00] also worked on the medal reallocation process and how if you got reallocated your, your, you suddenly became a medal winner for an Olympics that took place 12 years ago.
what types of ceremonies you could have and how, what they could choose, to have for their ceremony. Another initiative she worked on was developing the guidelines for athlete protests at Tokyo 2020.
Alison Brown: She’s a traditionalist.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Well and that also kind of stems back to her being pressured to protest on the field to play. Yeah. I thought that was a really interesting parallel of the seeds that are planted early in her life. they start working on it. And they did a lot of work on the athlete protest movement.
She did a lot of polling of athletes. I think that the athletes commission during her time that she has been on it, not necessarily all her leadership, but they have worked very hard to give athletes a bigger and bigger voice and make [00:34:00] sure that they get included a lot. ’cause I remember that, protest situation where they got thousands of responses to.
What they took surveys and questionnaires and really interpreted what the athletes wanted to see.
Alison Brown: You know, I think this is one of those times very much where American athletes and the rest of the world have a very different view of the situation. Because I remember a lot of American athletes coming out, before Tokyo being very upset with the results of, of that commission’s work.
And they show the results of the survey and the survey is saying, okay, but guess what? Americans, there’s, you know, 200 other countries that are coming to this little party and you are not the only ones. And even though Kirsty Coventry is an athlete, she’s not American and American athletes and American IOC needs to get their head in this [00:35:00] game that says, you don’t run this.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, and she’s an athlete from a small country, so she’s really looking out for small countries and making sure they have a voice, on the sidelines. Coventry’s also starting her own swim academy in her ra
Kirsty Coventry as Zimbabwe Minister for Sports, Arts and Recreation
Jill Jaracz: and then her sports administration career gets a little funky ’cause there’s a lot going on.
Alison Brown: Oh, we’re using the word funky.
I was wondering if we were gonna get to this, because I don’t want it to make it sound like we are Kirsty Coventry Apologists.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Uh, no, there’s some, there’s some funky stuff going. So she’s a member of the WADA Foundation Board and Athlete Rep on the International Testing Agency. She becomes a VP of the International Surfing Association in 2016, convenient for Tokyo 2020, and was a consultant for the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee.
In 2017 ish, she was elected to be a VP [00:36:00] of the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee in a landslide election. So she got 38 out of 42 votes for that. And then in September, 2018, new President Emerson, Managua appointed Coventry as Minister for Sports Art and Recreation, a cabinet level position.
And according to the Guardian, Kirsty found out about her appointment the same time everybody else did,
which I, I don’t know what to believe there, to be quite honest.
Alison Brown: Yeah. This is the part of Kirsty Coventry’s career where things get really murky. In terms of her connection with the Zimbabwean regime, and you will hear some real conflicting stories as to where she stands.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. She is the only white person on his 23 member cabinet, and she may not have had a choice to take the job.
If, [00:37:00] if you wanna be diplomatic about it again, it’s, oh, I’m appointing you. And you can’t say no, you can’t say no because new president, not much different than the old president. We’re gonna be basic. he’s got some bad human rights records but instead she opts to focus on her ministry supposedly again.
Do you stick with, a regime that is, got a lot of human rights issues? To try to make change or do you in a form of protest, say, no, I’m not working with you.
Alison Brown: This is the point where Coventry and I dive Verge.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, really? You would’ve said no.
Alison Brown: Well, this is the part where I no longer say to her what I said before, where she was an athlete, her family still lived in the country.
She didn’t have a lot of choices. Here. She’s got a choice here. She’s got multiple choices. She has the financial resources, she has supportive, powerful people. This, this is where Coventry and I have a problem.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. [00:38:00] Okay. Told the Guardian in 2025 ahead of the IOC election, this role was not something I ever considered doing.
And I didn’t even know I was being considered for the role, but I went with it. And she also has a philosophy that you can’t. Create change if you don’t have a seat at the table, which is true, I think. But again, what do you do? And I’m gonna sound like a Coventry apologist, but I don’t know what I would’ve done in her situation, because I don’t know what her home life is like at this point.
And I don’t know what her family would’ve faced at this point. So she’s gotten a lot of criticism for the role, particularly for being part of this government and being complicit with this administration. some big elements In, 2020, there was an opposition movement petitioning the IOC to revoke her membership over a Mugabe stolen farm that the president allocated to her.
which is [00:39:00] a situation I couldn’t get into very much in understanding. It’s a, it’s a racial thing. So, back in the day, it’s complicated. It complicated. It’s complicated because, uh, white people stole black people’s farms and then Mugabe stole them back, and then he decided to give one to Coventry. So do you take it yes or no?
I don’t know if I would, but. Can you say no? Or do you just go, okay, someday this is gonna get better, or someday I can really say what I’m thinking. We don’t really get the impression that she’s ever really said. What she thoughts,
Alison Brown: you know, Coventry strikes me, and this is totally opinion in terms of the fact that she has risen so far, so fast.
She is one, extremely ambitious, extremely, clever, and I don’t mean that in the, in a, she’s a gamesman. Mm-hmm. She is playing chess at all times [00:40:00] and figured out who to align with,
which, you know, I would probably say the same thing about Tomos Bach. Mm-hmm. Or anyone really, right? Anyone who, who would, would rise to that position. But not in the same way that I would think of, say, uh, Awana Antonio Samran. Really? Yes. He strikes me. And of course this is just my as, I don’t know, more brutal.
Like a little more like I am just gonna take what’s mine. Whereas as Bach and Coventry, I feel like they played the game.
Jill Jaracz: I wonder if they had to play the game as different eras. Yeah. Different era because of being an athlete and membership was fewer athletes. if, if you’ve got a whole bunch of rich people in royalty who, this is my club, I don’t wanna let athletes in, especially now that they’re pro.
[00:41:00] Women, God,
Alison Brown: Ew,
Jill Jaracz: coo. But yeah, it’s a total mindset ship because you’re, you’re dealing with an organization built on a ton of wealth. So back to back to what Coventry’s doing or not, and in her ministry. So in 2022, the Zimbabwe Sports and Rec Commission suspended the country’s national football board amid allegations of fraud and sexual harassment of female refs by technical staff.
That led to an 18 month FIFA ban, which of course, in any football, crazy country, you’re furious about this and you’ve hurt the athletes. But Coventry has said that she heard some pretty horrific stories about what was going on, and she, Said that they were making progress that helped them make progress.
So again, it’s a bad thing. it’s some pain. But does that cause, does, did we have to get to the stage where [00:42:00] you needed massive amounts of pain to cause change? Apparently
Alison Brown: boxing.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Yeah. That kind of thing. their governance is now on track, but Zimbabwe can’t host international matches because their stadiums aren’t up to international requirements, which is another Coventry responsibility.
And she’s taken a lot of heat for this too, and has said you’re not investing in sporting facilities like you’re supposed to. meanwhile, we have this ban on athletes that is preventing them from making a living. You’re not holding up your end of the bargain. she’s also been accused of letting the swimming infrastructure fall apart, including at the big Olympic aquatic complex outside Hara frogs.
Yeah. Right. The National Sports Stadium is being renovated. So in mid-March of this year, she toured it and, has said Money is slow to come. That’s a problem. [00:43:00] They’re making progress. There were some unexpected challenges with the renovations, kind of like they dug up some pipes and went, Ooh, we found a situation here.
But some frogs, not frogs, not different kind of plague, I guess, but they’re making some progress. Like seats were going in, entrance gates were happening. They found out they didn’t have to renovate as much of the pitch as they thought they would have to do. she also said like, do we wish it would happen faster?
Yeah. But that the tone that she had, and this was on an a news outlet’s Instagram feed. The tone that she had was like, you understand that there’s a lot of issues with budget and money releasing in our country, don’t you, kind of thing. So I can see where you’ve got issues with stadiums. Please make something happen.
And I also see where a hand could be tied on who’s gonna release the money and who’s got the purse strings. Really within the IOC as athletes [00:44:00] clamor for equal revenue distribution, she has defended the Olympic Solidarity program. ’cause remember the athletes have been going, Hey, give all of us some coin.
We all deserve it. she has said that without Olympic solidarity, that would be detrimental to a lot of athletes without financial means. And, you know, uh, producer Ben posted an interesting financial means situation on the Facebook group about a British athlete who is walking at registration fees.
They have to pay to go to a championships. And should
sports be for elites only? Who can pay for it? The people who can pay for it?
Alison Brown: Avery Brundage. Right?
Kirsty Coventry’s work in the IOC
Jill Jaracz: Right. she has worked to strengthen the network of athletes commissions. Around the world and get a stronger voice for athletes within the movement. She seems to be behind the drive to help athletes in their non-sporting careers.
She championed that athlete’s Dec [00:45:00] Declaration initiative that passed and was adopted into the Olympic charter that’s got 12 rights and 10 responsibilities, not universally loved within the sporting community. She was also in on initiatives like that Airbnb deal with athlete travel grants and Olympic experiences.
But according to inside the games and old, we’re at old inside the games, so we we can trust it. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, she’s also said that ending Russia’s Olympic band after pyeongchang was fair because the neutral team was cleaner than anyone else, although two Russians did test positive. She has been pretty vocal in trying to find a solution for Russian doping and getting people to the table to talk, which makes you think, you have to wonder if this attitude is going to help Russia get back into the Olympic graces again quickly, even if they’re still at war with Ukraine, which [00:46:00] is a violation of the Olympic charter.
Couldn’t get a read on that, but I think there’s that concern out there that she’s a little cozy with Russia, as with many IOC members. She’s on a number of committees and you know, like we, we noticed the women have to be on more so that they can reach their TOC, requested gender parody or whatever he was looking for.
More we more female representation. She’s, chairing the coordination commission for the Youth Olympic Games that will be in Dakar Senegal next year.
Alison Brown: Which
Jill Jaracz: actually
Alison Brown: makes sense.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. You know, it’s the first of the,
Alison Brown: any Olympic event in Africa.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, we’ll see how well they’re gonna do because they have had their own budget troubles.
I don’t think that’s, I’ve had a lot of troubles. That’s not Coventry’s fault, but, it’s a, an African thing because I think also when you have now an African IOC member, instantly people start thinking, well, the gains will go to Africa. At some point, Senegal will be a test of how much can they do?
‘ cause also, I mean, FIFA went to South Africa. [00:47:00] That’s been a long time. What, like a decade now?
Alison Brown: Oh, I wouldn’t even know. But they did do Saudi Arabia as well, right?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, yeah. But, but South Africa was a big deal because it was the first time they were in Africa that also not so good. So are we gonna learn from Rio 2016, which you were at Kirsty and probably got an earful from athletes over things not being so good.
Dunno,
Alison Brown: green pool water or diving tank, a green diving tank. Hey, maybe it was the frogs,
Jill Jaracz: just swim through it and
Alison Brown: pick a cake. I am never letting go of this frogs, now that you’ve told me this.
Jill Jaracz: she chairs the coordination commission for Brisbane 2032. And we’re gonna get into this when we talk about those games later on in this show.
But there is a lot of building going on for these games. So we are already doing what the IOC didn’t intend or what, what Teebo did not want when he created Agenda 2020 and Agenda 20, [00:48:00] 20 plus five.
Alison Brown: And I still would never forget Teebo for the name of that agenda. Oh geez.
Jill Jaracz: so that’s not gonna be good.
That’s, that I think could be a backsliding and that’s going on under her leadership and not being able to put the pressure on and say, Hey. The IOC really does not want this. And I think we see that also with Milan. The IOC said, no, we don’t need a track. And Milan made one happen. We’ll talk about that too.
oh, speculation on whether she could become IOC President has been going on since like 2019. So this is not a new thing that she is where she is
Kirsty Coventry’s campaign platform
Jill Jaracz: in her candidate files. Let’s look at those real quick. Coventry said it’s time to reevaluate the organization and get rid of inefficiencies and redundancies.
So we’re gonna do a, an overhaul, organizational restructuring. She wants to drive empowerment, strengthen engagement, and ensure the continued relevancy of the Olympic movement and is driven by an Ubuntu philosophy called I am [00:49:00] because we are. And a key part of that philosophy is lifting up others and being partners.
She does seem to be throughout her career very much come to the table, let’s talk, let’s work it out. Let’s get opinions from everybody. her candidate file is pretty basic. I will say. She talked about five priorities she wanted to work on harness the power, power of sport, which would prioritize athletes and, and now we are third athlete leader in a row.
So I think that is gonna be a big deal. She wants to strengthen women’s sport by protecting female athletes. Mm-hmm. So it’s, yeah. So it seems like the IOC is going to actually take a stand where the IOC does not love doing this and ban, put a blanket ban on trans athletes instead of passing the buck to federations, which is, you know, what the.
Modus operandi has been, uh, she wants to promote equal opportunities for women, [00:50:00] create tools and protocols to allow international federations to focus on sport delivery, tailor programs to N NOCs and expand the Olympic solidarity scholarships to grow, to help grow a worldwide audience for the Olympic movement.
Because if more countries and more athletes in small countries get scholarships, those countries will hop on the Olympic train, so to speak. I find it interesting that she wants to promote equal opportunities for women when she also wants to bans trans women.
Alison Brown: I am gonna make a lot of Catholic analogies probably in the next few minutes of the show, but we are not getting Pope Francis here. We are getting Pope Benedict. I. Oh, she is a traditionalist. She is. I don’t care that she’s a woman. I don’t care that she’s 41. I don’t care that she’s from Africa. She is old school traditionalist When it comes to certain things about sport, you know, we are not going to [00:51:00] see the new opening up of the IOC under Coventry.
You know, this is going to be, I think Bach is gonna look like, transparency supreme compared to Coventry. And I think on the flip side, it that’s how as a woman from Africa, she was palatable to the old boys network. Honestly, she’s one of them in a skirt.
Jill Jaracz: Interesting. Uh, would you call her a pick me girl?
Alison Brown: Oh, absolutely. I don’t think she has a lot of female friends on the IOC, but on the flip side, she does. ’cause she couldn’t have gotten elected without them.
Jill Jaracz: Right. I just think she knows how to talk to everybody. Yeah. And I think that no matter, it’s not that she wants to be friends with everybody, she wants to get along with everybody.
And I think she wants everybody to get along because we need everybody in a different way to, you know, I have these goals or the [00:52:00] organization has these goals now, or you know, she has these goals so I gotta make friends with enough IOC members, the organization now she’s gonna be leading an organization, had the organization has these goals.
Okay, where are we gonna get our people? And we’re gonna be looking at Saudi Arabia because they’re hosting the eGames for a while and how are they going to help the movement? And she’ll probably look to Africa and go, Hey, you’re my people.
Alison Brown: W let’s do something kind of thing. Neville. Neville Chamberlain.
Not Winston Churchill.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Yes.
Alison Brown: Um, but to be fair, I don’t think any of the candidates were Winston Churchill. No. I think they were all a little to ne Neville Chamberlain, especially when it, the only one I think who might’ve stood up to Russia would’ve been sco. And he’s Neville Chamberlain in a lot of other ways.
So I, I think we, when it comes to Russia, we’re, we’re not in a good place. No, not
Jill Jaracz: really. Not really other priorities. She wants to [00:53:00] maximize collaboration and engagement, so improve internal communications to have better communication with the media. Did acknowledge that that’s going to open them up to criticism a lot more.
You have to be okay with it. I have a feeling she has a pretty thick skin.
Alison Brown: Absolutely.
Jill Jaracz: IOC commissions will have greater influence and decision making power, which again, we’ve talked about how tebo kind, there’s been a lot of talk lately about Tebo consolidating power and having a lot of power for him, for himself.
I, I don’t know. But
Alison Brown: he was the final decision maker. Yes. I mean, there was, he was the arbiter. If, if a commission came out with something that he really didn’t like, I don’t think we, it, it saw the light of day.
Jill Jaracz: Right. So will membership be cool with them having the same kind of input that they’ve had for the last couple of years?
Or will that convince people to be on commissions and work more there? And that’s where the, the decision making is gonna [00:54:00] take place. She wants to strengthen partnerships from mutual growth. Keep financial partners, make sure everyone in the world can experience the game. So we’re looking at a broader reach of media products and targeting younger viewers and audiences.
champion sustainable de development, social impact, advanced gender equity, except for the trans, uh, inclusivity and diversity, environmental sustainability. You can’t have growth for growth sakes. So she has said like, basically the games are about as big as they can get. I’m not sure she’s thrilled when I read this.
I’m like, oh, you must not be thrilled with all the sports that got added for la. so she wants to explore the review of the sports program, and she wants to advance credibility and trust, have zero tolerance for corruption, doping, doping, and unethical behavior. And the IOC must remain neutral. You know, producer Brendan and I joke, uh, political candidates always like, I’m pro-education and I’m against crime.
You know, this kind of reads like that to me in a way. [00:55:00]
Alison Brown: Very much.
Jill Jaracz: there’s a little contradiction going on there with what she wants and what she’s also said. it’s gonna be interesting to see what she does. She’s also a mom of two small children, had one not that long ago, so it’s gonna be interesting to see what she does with mothers who are athletes.
Alison Brown: And there’s been a lot of progress made with mm-hmm. With mothers. Paris did a lot
Jill Jaracz: mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: To make it easier to be a parent, especially a mother, and an athlete at the same time. And a lot of federations have as well. So she may take, I hope she takes some of those successes and brings it system-wide.
Right.
Jill Jaracz: I think that her being a five time Olympian and seeing so many games under different presidents and being in the movement as long as she has been as an athlete, is a big asset to her. And I think she’s going to push that athlete [00:56:00] focus a lot.
Alison Brown: Well, she’s been an athlete in such a recent Olympics as well.
Yeah. You know, when teabag was elected it was what,
Jill Jaracz: 76? He was 20. I’m trying to do the math in my head. 20, 20 13, I think he was elected. Yes. So yes, he was a long time. So
Alison Brown: it was a long time post, athletic career. She was 2016. Right. You know, we all have that in our memories. It’s not a generation ago, so that makes it very significant.
Jill Jaracz: I also wanna tell, talk a tiny bit about the Athlete’s Commission, ’cause that’s a big part of how she got to be where she is created in 1981 by Juan Antonio, Sam Ranch, the first. And, uh, it wasn’t until Lillehammer 1994 that athletes were elected. They were always appointed first. And then, Kirsty’s first year as an Olympian was the first time that Athletes Commission members became [00:57:00] IOC members, and that the first athlete rep joined the I-O-C-E-B.
when she started in with the Olympics, there’s a lot of change going on and she, I think she probably saw some of that change happen and, That also drives some of this athlete first thing.
Alison Brown: And it also may drive some of her conservatism in the sense of the need for continuity.
She grew up in a very tumultuous world.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: You know, her childhood in Zimbabwe and then even in a, in a much smaller scale, but she grew up as an athlete in kind of a tumultuous time in the Olympic movement. We saw, we have seen a lot of change in the Olympic movement in the past 25 years. Yes. And I mean, if you think back to, you know, what went on in 2000 and, and, and the Salt Lake City scandals coming through there and she saw a lot of things happen where I could see her.
Can’t we all just get along?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah.
Alison Brown: I don’t have to like it, [00:58:00] but I understand it. So it’ll be curious
Jill Jaracz: to see how she does. What we’re going to get. I don’t, I think there are signs here that we’re going to see something that’s gonna be controversial. You’ve gotta look like some things.
What’s up first for Kirsty Coventry as IOC President
Alison Brown: I mean, she’s gonna have to make an announce, I think within the first month, if not the first week of her actual tenure.
She’s gonna have to make an announcement about Russia.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah, definitely. Because that’s gotta be decided. Although a lot of federations have already said, you know, they’re not, they’re not coming to, Milan, so we’ll see. But, you know, you’ve gotta make that decision for 28 pretty quickly. I also think that some of the decisions and leadership she will have, because she wants to bring all of these voices to the table. It is not going to play well in Western press.
Alison Brown: I can’t disagree
Jill Jaracz: whether that’s, it’s not [00:59:00] a good or bad thing, but I think it’s one of those trying to take that neutral stance and maintain that neutral stance and do what’s best for the organization.
Just like the IOC had Beijing 2022, they’ve been in places where it’s Rio 2016 had a lot of corruption. Well, they just don’t have the same priorities that other nations do. You know, there are no friends and enemies in a way that any other country has.
Alison Brown: It’s inter, I mean, it is the International Olympic Committee, right?
It’s not America’s Olympic Committee or Russia’s Olympic Committee. It is a. Collection of the countries of the world. So you’re going to have very divergent political thoughts, needs, desires, and how do you manage all of that? And then you’re gonna throw in, well, she’s a young woman, certainly young in the sense of, you know, being a world leader and how is that gonna play out in the press?
Because let’s not pretend that a [01:00:00] woman in her position is gonna get flacked, that a man wouldn’t, especially when so much of the
Jill Jaracz: sports media is still male.
Alison Brown: Right?
Jill Jaracz: So it’s gonna be interesting. Like we said, she’s 41. She can be a member of the IOC until 2053. And let’s not forget that the IOC also recently eased its term limit on presidents to allow Tebo to run again.
And he said no. So who knows how long the Kirsty Coventry Reign will last. We’ve got it for at least eight years.
Alison Brown: Bru. So here’s, here’s the Catholic reference. I have been waiting all show to share with you from our absolute friend of the show, sh Ani and, and going Rogue King IOC member, Dick Pound, uh, I was reading Ed Warner’s newsletter on Substack and he took a quote that was reported on the independent that said, Dick Pound said that the [01:01:00] IOC makes the Vatican conclave look like it’s open house.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, dick pound. Although, you know what? I don’t really care about that. The IOC is a membership organization. They can do their elections, how they want, what they need to, what they are required to share with us. I, I mean, numbers help, but. How they run their business is kind of their business. It’s not, I, I mean, I, I would imagine that there’s gonna be some, would be some press people going, yeah, well, what they do is affecting people in different cities and countries because they have these really expensive gains.
Well, that’s between the country and them in a way. And that’s when they talk to their citizens. But how they wanna elect their president,
give it a rest. You had, you, you boys needed more to gossip about. And that one, that one round voting really did you in,
Alison Brown: didn’t it? It did. So Jacques, ro and, teak were two rounds, so we haven’t seen one round in, in our paying attention time. What I thought was really interesting, first woman joined the [01:02:00] IOC in 1981. Wow. So not that long ago. and our friend, Anita Defra, who we’ve talked about many times, was the first VP of the IOC executive Committee in 97. Wow. Took a long time, but this is my favorite part. And because when we were saying before that she had to make friends with the women to get elected, when, uh, DEFRA ran for the presidency in 2001, there were 11 members who were women.
That’s it. When Tebo ran, 21% were women. This time around 43% of the voting membership were women.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: And I
Jill Jaracz: know he,
Alison Brown: that’s a teak pushed her this. Yes. I mean this is, this is his, one of his main legacies is he more than doubled the number of women on the IOC and put them in significantly powerful positions.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: So I don’t think she could have been elected if that change hadn’t [01:03:00] happened.
Jill Jaracz: I’m not sure either. I think the way Tebo ran things and yes, they got along very well and had to work together a lot. So there was a lot of, well, he, she was his favorite candidate. Okay. He claims to not have campaigned.
Okay. Dunno. But I also saw on, LinkedIn that sh Terrence Burns helped with Juan Antonio Sam’s campaign. So, I mean, there’s stuff,
Alison Brown: there’s stuff going on. I mean, let’s not pretend but there was a lot going on. There’s a reason Dick Pound says, right atic and conclave is a more open procedure, right?
Jill Jaracz: It’s not running for school president,
Alison Brown: have you ever run for school president? I
Jill Jaracz: ran for school like junior high. I ran for officer somewhere.
Alison Brown: Those get nasty.
This was probably safer ’cause at least somebody didn’t hit you with a spitball. Can you [01:04:00] imagine Princess Ann, you know, shooting, shooting him out? She made an appearance and she was lovely. Hardest working woman on the IOC.
Jill Jaracz: Oh man. Oh man. Oh man.
Kirsty Coventry – Final thoughts
Jill Jaracz: So yeah, do you have any final thoughts on what. You think we can see from her what, knowing more about Kirsty and her background, what has anything changed for you in your mind?
Alison Brown: I think I’m gonna be pretty mad for the next eight years. Ooh, wow. I am a little Avery Brenda. Interesting.
Jill Jaracz: Where do you think that she is going to brandage it up?
Alison Brown: I think she is certainly too conservative for my taste. I think her stance on, can’t we all get along is gonna make me crazy. I think Russia is gonna get away with high crimes and misdemeanors. For the next eight years, I think she’s [01:05:00] going to golden, cage female athletes.
So I am, I’m definitely concerned. Interesting, interesting.
Jill Jaracz: I’m curious, I’m not sure being a people pleaser growing up, I Of course. Why can’t we all get along? I am concerned that there’s gonna be a little bit more conservatism or hard line brought into the movement, I think there’s going to be some athletes who are very much discounted and, uh, removed.
But I. Do you think there’s gonna be more for athletes and they’re gonna take more of a center stage thing, which I hope will happen in a good way and we’ll see. We’ll see. I listen, I wanna know what listeners think. We had some, absolutely. We had some conversation about this on our Facebook page.
We had some people who did not think that she’d get elected. Some people thought CO would happen first. Are you surprised that, I think co thought, I think [01:06:00] co thought co would happen. Uh, I think a lot of media people thought CO would happen too. A lot of British media people, they were very, very shocked that she, he got so few votes.
He only got like eight votes comparatively. She got just enough to win. With one Antonio Samaranch behind her, and then Ko got about eight votes, and then the others got like one or two.
Alison Brown: Yeah. A lot of prognosticators, uh, said because she got in, in the first vote, that’s what did it. Mm-hmm. Because had it gone to a second vote and some of the others had dropped out, she might not have won.
Subsequently that people were, were putting not protest votes, but there was a handful of votes that went to some of the smaller candidates
Jill Jaracz: mm-hmm.
Alison Brown: That wanted them to have votes, but would have switched to either CO or Samran going forward. But Coventry pulled it off just ’cause you need 49 votes. She got 49 votes.
Um, somebody didn’t do their math correctly, I [01:07:00] think is the real issue.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right. Um, it, it’s kind of like when Chicago got kicked out of the 2016 bid in round one. And there are a lot of gasps in the audience. I, I do think we need, some kind of meme of them flipping through the binder, trying to figure out what happens next because they were not sur surprised or they were so shocked to have the voting done in one round.
That was the, that was really the best part,
Alison Brown: that he’s just sitting there in front of the world flipping pages and the pages were covered in post-it notes. Like, I’m like, oh, I ooc directors. They’re just like us.
Jill Jaracz: That was funny. people were surprised about Coventry, but, uh, listener John, uh, had a lot of thoughts, but he thinks that the storm is gonna hit, like Teebo is leaving just in time and Coventry’s got to face a lot of battles before her first year is up. Like, like you said, Russia, [01:08:00] transgender la, climate change, ballooning Olympic program.
She’s got some baggage, but he also said who in the IOC doesn’t have a skeleton in the closet?
Alison Brown: And probably there are some people who actually have skeletons in the closet.
Jill Jaracz: That could be, that could be, talk about a conclave.
Alison Brown: What is in those royal palaces?
Milano Cortina 2026 News
Jill Jaracz: Bon it’s time to talk about Milan Cortina 2026. Big news for them was that the sliding track was tested.
Alison Brown: There were sliders going down the sliding track.
Jill Jaracz: The interesting thing is if you saw these tests, the construction is nowhere near done. They have, they have a track. They have a track, yeah. And they have ice on the track. And you got to see skeleton athletes and losers and bobsleds go down, but there’s no roof on the track.[01:09:00]
And it doesn’t even look like all of the walling is built. But they have the bare minimum. Everyone is happy. The federations were very, very happy with how it looks and, uh, was performing. they also have to build the support buildings that go with it. Work is going to continue until November 5th. Okay. We have a track, so we will see. I, I don’t think ho modulation is totally finished. Have I don’t, we haven’t had a full decision yet, if I understand.
Alison Brown: No. So no, they had, so, the Milan organizing Committee presented to the IOC and that’s still not quite.
Nobody’s saying it definitively. Yes. You know, lake Placid is not off the table. Right? Right. Milan would like to pretend Lake Placid is off the table. Yes. Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: track is 1.749 kilometers long. 16 curves estimated top speed of 145 kilometers per hour, which for those of you in miles, that’s 90. And they have [01:10:00] runtime slated for 55 to 60 seconds.
the organizing committee also presented to the IOC. Uh, they’ve had successful test events in short track figure skating, aerial and moguls. 600,000 of the 1.5 million tickets have been sold. I think they’re having another ticket drop soon.
I got an email about this.
Alison Brown: Oh.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. April eight, there’s going to be another ticket drop. Okay, so if you have not gotten tickets and you would like to sign up now, uh, you can buy Paralympic tickets at any time, but if you are looking to go to the Olympics, tickets will be, coming at you again. They’re gonna have early bird prices.
Those will not last. Tickets are going to be released on a first come, first served basis. So, uh, we’ll have a link to how to get those in the show notes.
LA 2028 News
Alison Brown: LA presented at the IOC too. Yeah. How’s that going? Oh, Lordy, Lordy lord. So, [01:11:00] Casey Wasserman and Reynold Hoover, Reynold Hoover’s, the chief executive, Casey Wasserman. Is, is he the president of the organizing committee?
Jill Jaracz: Potentially. He’s a jar. He’s like the main man in church. He’s,
Alison Brown: so, there was a lot of questions, obviously concerning what’s happening with the wildfires, what’s going on in American politics. Yeah. So the Chief Executive rental, uh, Hoover said for 17 days, this is a quote for 17 days. We can fix any problem in the world, which I think is probably the most arrogant thing that has ever been said in an IOC session.
And that is saying something.
Jill Jaracz: Wow. Does he remember Atlanta 1996 and the, the bombing.
Alison Brown: Dear Lord, but they did emphasize that they’re working with the Trump administration, state officials, local officials, that everything is hunky dory on the political front. But there’s a little thing going on, and I loved this ’cause Ingmar DeVos, [01:12:00] who’s the head of the International Equestrian Federation, said, your president is not allowing people from certain countries into the us How is that going to work?
Jill Jaracz: Right? And that stuff changes minute by minute. Here we’re still in a, it’s announced one day it’s rescinded. The next day it’s announced the next, you know, reapply the, the, the following day or the following week, rescinded again. We are in a constant state of flux here of not knowing what is actually going on in this country.
Makes it very hard to plan for athletes.
Alison Brown: The official proposal from the Trump administration includes total travel bans from 11 countries, including big countries in, in both the Olympics and the Paralympics, like Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela, restricted visas for another 10 countries, including some big guns like Russia and Belarus.
And then a 60 day vetting process from 22 countries, which would [01:13:00] include Kirsty, Coventry, Zimbabwe, and St. Lucia who just happened to, um, win some gold medals in Paris.
Jill Jaracz: What’d they do?
Alison Brown: Why? Why are they being targeted? I, you know, there were several islands, nations, several Caribbean island nations that were targeted in that 60 day vetting process.
So Waserman just kept saying, no, Trump supports the games. And Coventry said, of course, all the athletes will be getting visas, but. The IOC membership was not buying it in this LA presentation. Wow. So, yeah.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Because so many athletes get selected for the games weeks less than 60 days. Yes. Yes. So what are you going to do, especially if you’ve got, an administration that is banning stuff
Alison Brown: willy-nilly, so to speak?
And it’s hard. I mean, in this country, we’ve talked to many athletes who are in that USA, uh, that US Army program that supports athletes. Lots of [01:14:00] these countries do the same thing. So if you are in the military of Venezuela, are you automatically not gonna make it through vetting?
Jill Jaracz: Boy, yeah. This is gonna be not fun to deal with.
And I, I would not be surprised considering what’s going on, even with Canada. The, tariff situation that’s happening and the breakdown of diplomatic relations. If there’s a massive boycott, I would not be surprised. I’m not saying there will be, and I’m not gonna ask any country to start thinking about that, but I would not be surprised if in two years we have a much different world.
Alison Brown: You know what, considering we have a much different world in what, two months? Mm-hmm. 28 is a long way off in, in this political situation and heartbreaking on so many levels that this is, that this is where we are. on the upside, the [01:15:00] organizing committee for LA said that they’re feeling momentum from Paris 2024 and they are expected to reach their sponsorship goals.
Uh, they’re seeing, they’re saying 2 billion by the end of the year. Wow. That’s pretty good. That’s pretty good. And then the city approved the plan of moving things out of the city, moving things into the city. In terms of the venues, we won’t get the full picture until April 9th. That seems to be when we’re gonna get some more announcements, uh, concerning the venue plan.
So I got all concerned about this, but it’s actually nothing new. If you saw this press release, ’cause we had a conversation and I was panicking that they had moved swimming out of SoFi, and then you’re like, no, sweetie, SoFi is in Englewood. So you’ll see a lot of things about the LA venue plan. Don’t worry about them.
Until next week. Right.
French Alps 2030 News
Alison Brown: So French Alps 2030, which is the [01:16:00] stupidest name so far, they need to do better of a location. they actually have an og now they reported to the IOC session. So the president is going to be Edgar Gross Peron. He’s a three time Olympian and the 92 gold medalist in freestyle moguls. their main principles are gonna be sporting success, the hospitality of the French ALP territories and a sustainable legacy.
We’re gonna see a venue master plan, which could be really interesting because they’re talking, spreading these things out even more than Milan. Corina, we’ll see that in June. Their report was. Heavy on glitz, very low on substance videos. Do wonderful things.
Brisbane 2032 News
Alison Brown: Speaking of venue plans, holy moly, cannoli Brisbane [01:17:00] 2032 came out with a doozy of an update. Lay it on us. Okay, so this is my favorite part of this thing. So David Christopher Foley, who is the premiere of Queensland, campaigned all fall on no new stadium. Guess what? He just approved new stadiums, a new stadium.
So here’s the big headlines. 7.1 billion Australian dollar construction cost, which is about 4.4 billion us. We’re gonna have three athlete villages, 37 venues between Kane and the Gold Coast, which is 1100 miles. For those in the US we’re gonna have venues from New York to Tampa.
Jill Jaracz: Okay? And
Alison Brown: we’re not just talking soccer being spread out, we’re talking lots of venues in different places, hence three athlete [01:18:00] villages.
Jill Jaracz: In a way though, if you, I mean, again, we have the, how much of the games do you want it to be in a city? How much will fans enjoy the opportunity to not see stuff? I. People going to Milan Cortina are making serious choices about what they can and cannot see. And they are diehard Olympics fans who wanna fit in all the sports they can.
So here you’re either gonna have to, you’re gonna have to bop around between, clusters or say we’re not going to a couple of clusters.
Alison Brown: We’ve talked a lot about the gaba. The GABA is going to be used but then demolished after the games.
Jill Jaracz: Interesting. So are they gonna put money into fixing it up? ’cause that was a big deal.
Alison Brown: Not really.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. Well, some, you know, but good. I mean, that would be worse to have say, oh, we need to spend like 50 million to bring this site up to games level and then
Alison Brown: basically crash it all down.
Right. So they took out the Brisbane [01:19:00] arena as well, because that needed 2.5 billion Australian dollars in refurbishment. Wow. So they said, we’re not gonna spend it on that. We’re just gonna build a whole new stadium instead. My favorite part of this whole program is that the site for canoe and para canoe has saltwater crocodiles.
Like that’s what that stretch of the Fitzroy River is known for.
Jill Jaracz: That is making like comedy, late night comedy show stories here. Gold. Yeah. I mean, okay. Not, not great to have crocodiles around. Well, we don’t know how they’re gonna be. Wait, and what did, didn’t they say, oh, we go, we go surfing where they’re sharks.
Yes. So it’s okay. yeah. That’s awesome. Don’t know if it’s gonna be a bigger deal than like, will there be any cro ISEs at all? Will this be another Zika and it’s just something to make fun of? Or is it an actual problem? Interesting that they’ve decided we’re going to spend over twice as much to [01:20:00] build a new arena versus fix an arena.
Well
Alison Brown: that, construction cost is all the construction.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, okay. Okay. That’s not just for the single stadium. Okay. ’cause
Alison Brown: we’ve got other new builds besides Brisbane Stadium. We’ve got a new National Aquatic Center, a new Whitewater Center, couple of new Indoor Sports center, a PariSport Center, which is going to be up significant.
There’s, there is a small sports center there now, but they’re gonna expand that all to be the center for and training center for Parasport. And we’re gonna throw in a new football stadium and Carn.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Alison Brown: Then you’ve got construction that might as well be new builds, like at the Brisbane Tennis Center, we’re gonna have a new center court and 12 new outside courts.
That, that is a total new, it’s a rebuild, you know, Brisbane showgrounds, sunshine Coast Stadium, uh, the hockey center, couple other stadiums, RNA Showgrounds. We’re just gonna put the village there [01:21:00] and put some training stuff there. Okay. So much new build in this venue plan. It is out of control. This felt like Barcelona 92 when I was reading through this venue plan.
And then you look at LA that’s, that’s trying very hard to have zero new construction. Of course, we’re bending the rules when it comes to temporary stadiums, but they ain’t building SoFi again.
Jill Jaracz: Right. And I get that maybe some of this stuff will be beneficial to the area afterwards. I can see where Australia and, and aquatic center would be a good thing.
Whitewater center are
Alison Brown: they,
Jill Jaracz: are, are,
Alison Brown: I mean, there’s only one in the country, so they wanna have a second one ’cause the country’s big.
Jill Jaracz: Okay, I get that. You know, we have the chicken and the egg, you get the Olympics. So that’s impetus to develop and, and, uh, invest in sports facilities. But at the same time, oh my gosh.
Doing it all at
Alison Brown: [01:22:00] once is just, it’s such a sticker shock. And let’s start taking bets on what seven mil, uh, billion is gonna be when we’re done. Ooh,
Jill Jaracz: it’s gonna be 16. Oh, you’re saying? I was gonna say 13.2 ’cause my brain actually went to double that, but yeah, it’s gonna be at least double. Yeah. Okay. For the record, I’ve got it.
I’ll, I’ll say 14. And you’ve got 16. Yep. I think you’re gonna win.
And that’s, and, and we still got other stadiums who are upgrading too. I mean, that’s then it, right. So
Alison Brown: there’s a whole list. The bicycle center, the shooting center, the Velodrome, and, and that’s a range. You know, the Velodrome is pretty much up to speed. The shooting center pretty much up to speed. Archery is just like a field.
Jill Jaracz: Right, right. And, and honestly, some of those will be, hey, the games are in seven years still, you’re gonna need some refurbishment [01:23:00] just as part of the usual wear and tear on the thing. So, yeah. Okay. Brisbane.
Alison Brown: Very quick report from Salt Lake City 2032. We have organizing committee leadership. Frazier Bullock is gonna be the executive chair and president. Very involved, obviously with the, campaign to get it to Salt Lake City as were Brad Wilson and Steve Starks. They’re going to be the vice chairs. Uh, Brad Wilson was the former speaker of the Utah House of Reps, which I thought was fun.
And Starks is a former president of the Utah Jazz.
Jill Jaracz: Oh.
Doping News
Alison Brown: Hey, did you know the Russians were doping with TMZ?
[01:24:00] Oh, my cross country skier and para biathlete, Nikolai Pelican from 2014 had his case heard and his band upheld. So there’s gonna be some reallocations from individual events. Uh, losing his silver for the men’s 7.5 kilometer, uh, visually impaired biathlon the silver from the 12.5 and then the gold from the men’s, uh, 15 kilometer biathlon visually impaired.
The gold in the mixed cross country relay has not been changed. They’re leaving that ’cause he was only one of the team. Interesting.
Jill Jaracz: I wonder if, did they say anything like they may strip his medal but the team result stays intact?
Alison Brown: They did not. Okay. That was not part of this announcement. It may have been buried in older things ’cause this was, an appeal that was Okay.
not heard. So was was same drug as Camilla?
Jill Jaracz: I was gonna say it was part of the appeal that grandpa was [01:25:00] taking the medicine and, and it was on a cutting board?
Alison Brown: No, because his case was, he swapped his samples. Maybe he swapped them with grandpa.
TKFLASTAN News
Alison Brown: Welcome to Stan. It
Jill Jaracz: is the time of the show and thanks for sticking around with us this long, but we had to do a deep dive on Kirsty. We had to, uh, she’s gonna be a big deal for the next eight years, so we had to get to know her. Uh, but it is the time of the show where we check in with our team, keep the flame alive.
These are the athletes and guests of the show. These are the guests of the show and, uh, um, listeners that make up our citizenship of our very own country. Shook Stan. Lot of cool stuff going on this week.
Alison Brown: Uh, the Dundee’s 50, Evan Duney broke the world record for the men’s 35 kilometer baseball hockey.
Jill Jaracz: Chloe Kim won her third snowboard halfpipe World title and clenched a spot on her third Olympic team. Chloe, we will [01:26:00] see you in Milan, Corina,
Alison Brown: and after 15 years with team Novo Nordisk track cyclist Mandy Mar Quad will be racing with edge cycling based out of the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania.
Jill Jaracz: congratulations to Derek Long, who taught us about, uh, curling stones. He has successfully defended his PhD
Alison Brown: thesis. That’s Dr. Long to you.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. That’s right. I.
Alison Brown: And congratulations also to John Cushing and Michael Ock from anything but footy who awarded the Sports Journalist Association Award for audio live event coverage for their work on talk sport at Paris 2024.
The US Fencing Coaches Association named its NCAA, fencing All Americans. And the list includes CSI’s, mad Ovitz, and Hadley Ian, first Team and Lauren Scruggs, second team.
Get in touch and coming soon!
Jill Jaracz: And that is gonna do it for this very long episode, uh, to let us know what you think of the new IOC President and what we can expect
Alison Brown: over the next eight years. We do love [01:27:00] hearing from you. You can chat with us and other listeners on our Facebook group, ke The Flame Alive Podcast. Email us at Flame Alive pod@gmail.com, and the voicemail and text line is always open at 2 0 8 3 5 2 6 3 4 8.
That’s 2 0 8. Flame it. And if you need more Olympics and Paralympics in your life and who doesn’t sign up for our newsletter@flamealivepod.com. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes. And next week
Jill Jaracz: we will be going back to Sydney for another look at the 2000 Olympics and Paralympics. Thank you so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive.