The new president of the International Olympic Committee has held her seat for just one week and is already making monumental moves.
As the head of the IOC, Kirsty Coventry wields tremendous power not only in the business world but in setting the tone worldwide for standards in sports.
‘We have to protect the female category, first and foremost.’
After assuming office on June 23, the former Zimbabwean swimmer took questions in a nearly hour-long press conference, where she made one thing clear: The Olympic Committee is moving away from placating transgender athletes.
About halfway through the event, Coventry, Africa’s most decorated Olympian, answered questions about how female events will look at the Olympics moving forward.
The 2024 Paris games were cloaked in shame after male Algerian athlete Imane Khelif competed and won gold in women’s boxing, causing massive public outrage. Khelif has been proven to be a man four times over but was still allowed to compete after the IOC ended gender testing in 1999, punting the responsibility to individual sports bodies.
That status quo may be changing.
“On the protection of the female category, it was very clear from the members that we have to protect the female category, first and foremost,” Coventry told a journalist. “We have to do that to ensure fairness. But we need to do that with a scientific approach and with the inclusion of the international federations who have already done a lot of work in this area.”
The new IOC president said that she will quickly work to “bring in the experts” and international federations to find “cohesion on this specific topic.”
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Coventry was faced with a similar question later on in the presser, with a reporter asking if cheek swabbing to determine sex was the likely scenario in order to protect women’s sports.
The executive said the IOC would look at the work that has been done by organizations like World Athletics and come up with an answer through “scientific approaches.”
The same reporter then asked specifically about how much Khelif’s case had affected the decision and if it had a heavy influence on Olympic Committee members.
Coventry said that the Olympic Committee “unanimously” felt it was time to find a consensus on how to protect women’s sports. She then noted that she had heard from many members about how the issue has played out in their own countries. This included members taking issue not only from a competitive standpoint but also a cultural one, Coventry explained.
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PARIS, FRANCE – AUGUST 10: Yu Ting Lin of Team Chinese Taipei celebrates a victory against Julia Szeremeta of Team Poland (not pictured) after the Boxing Women’s 57kg Final match on day fifteen of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Roland Garros on August 10, 2024, in Paris, France. (Photo by Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
“I’m very encouraged to see Coventry stating that she will protect the female category,” Jennifer Sey, a former U.S. national gymnastics champion, told Blaze News. “I’d only add that there really is no nuance. And there can be no compromise on this. It’s very simple. You must [have] XX [chromosomes] to compete in the women’s category. Sex testing — one time! — will verify this.”
While the new IOC president did fall short of plainly stating men should not be in women’s sports, if any policy similar to that of other athletic institutions is implemented, it should stop athletes like Khelif from competing against women.
Still, with Khelif daring President Trump in March to stop him from competing at the 2028 games in Los Angeles and attempting to compete against women as recently as May, the boxer may end up going down swinging, along with many other hostile male athletes.
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Fearless, Olympics, Women’s sports, Transgenderism, 2026 olympics, Woke, Sports
