Olympic leader Coventry learns in first political stress test with Los Angeles challenges ahead

MILAN (AP) — The first female president in the International Olympic Committee’s 132 years got a proper stress test in the first games of her history-making leadership.

Kirsty Coventry was widely seen as having good overall success at the Milan Cortina Winter Games that also gave a taste of challenges set to be tougher running into the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“An incredible games, and an incredible experience for me as my first in this role,” she told IOC colleagues Sunday.

Coventry insisted in Milan pre-games that “our game is sport,” yet playing politics was inevitable.

She started the Winter Games building “very good chemistry” with U.S. Vice President JD Vance — who was booed at the opening ceremony — and had seemed likely to close it with U.S. President Donald Trump, who she has not yet met. He did not travel as many expected for Sunday’s men’s ice hockey final that the U.S. won.

In between, political pressure on Coventry was intense during the days-long drama of the Ukraine skeleton racer’s helmet memorializing athletes and coaches killed in the Russian military invasion.

Coventry’s face-to-face, trackside meeting with Vladyslav Heraskevych early Feb. 12 that failed to avert his disqualification has helped define her leadership style.

Her tears in a subsequent meeting with international media is a powerful image of her presidency — though Heraskevych himself wasn’t impressed.

The next day, at a news conference in Milan, a list was detailed to Coventry of IOC issues with its own finances, plus future Olympic hosts, their officials and governments.

“It’s a job only a woman could do,” she said with relish, “and I’m looking forward to continuing to do it.”

The athletes’ president

The Ukrainian political strategy had been “a baptism of fire” for the new president, the former IOC marketing director Michael Payne told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Coventry going directly to engage Heraskevych in sports diplomacy was a shift from her predecessors Thomas Bach and Jacques Rogge, who also were Olympic athletes.

At age 42, having swum for Zimbabwe as recently as the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, Coventry is just 13 months older than a huge star at these games, Lindsey Vonn.

“We saw at these games her values and her humanity,” IOC member Tricia Smith, a silver medalist in rowing for Canada at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, told The Associated Press. “And I think that’s exceptionally positive for the Olympic Movement as we move forward.”

The 72-year-old Bach sat next to Coventry again Sunday at the IOC’s meeting: He in suit and tie, she in smart casual knitwear that is becoming her signature look.

The generational change is clear for the Olympics, which wants and needs to stay relevant with athletes who are increasingly their own tech-savvy brands.

The business president

After seven years as sports minister in the government of Zimbabwe, Coventry was no management rookie.

One of her four IOC vice presidents, Pierre-Olivier Beckers, said in Milan that people who had thought she was too young to lead were wrong.

“I think she’s maturing at an incredible pace,” Beckers told reporters, adding she was “a joy for people like me to work with. Her ability to surround herself, to listen to people, all advisors, to make up her mind quickly, is just astonishing.”

Making headlines at a news conference

One aspect of Coventry’s management style that drew negative reactions, online and in Milan, was criticizing staff in her last set-piece media event Friday.

Coventry is one of the more transparent leaders among the Olympic sports bodies mostly based in Switzerland. She had four scheduled news conferences in Milan within 20 days, plus an impromptu media session after meeting Heraskevych.

On Friday, she publicly lost patience when asked about news developments that she said she was unaware of — on the topics of Russian doping, an Olympic bid from Germany, and FIFA president Gianni Infantino attending Trump’s Board of Peace launch Thursday.

Clearly frustrated, Coventry eventually said “maybe someone needs to be dismissed because I’m not aware of that either” and asked of her media team: “What happened guys? Where are we?”

Looking ahead to Los Angeles

Coventry has a big 2026 with signature policy to be decided under the “Fit for the Future” banner. Reviews are ongoing into how the IOC picks games hosts, Olympic sports and sponsor programs, plus protecting female sports.

Key meetings are in the IOC’s Swiss home city Lausanne on June 24-25 with more likely late in the year.

The next Olympics is a constant focus. There is a pressing issue around L.A. Games organizing chief Casey Wasserman, that was persistent in Milan over news of his historic ties to Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend, and Coventry will soon need to meet Trump.

“She can leave (Milan) with a massive sigh of relief. The brand is in robust health,” Payne said Sunday.

He warned of more politicization of Olympic sports worldwide before the next Olympics in the United States. The IOC winning the appeal brought by Heraskevych will help set limits on how athletes express views.

“L.A. will be a completely different dimension,” Payne said. “It’s going to be complicated, to put it mildly.”

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AP Winter Olympics coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics