/A guest column by George Hirthler, who has been working in the Olympic world since 1989. Since then he has served as a writer/producer on ten international Olympic bid campaigns, including the winning bids of Beijing 2008, Vancouver 2010 and LA 2028. In 2016, Hirthler published The Idealist, a fictionalized biography of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, and he is writer and producer of documentaries on Atlanta 1996 and de Coubertin. His opinions are, of course, his own alone./
Much has been made – and rightly so – about the advancement of women in Olympic sport over the last few decades. Eighteen months ago at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the world celebrated the 50/50 gender equality milestone between male and female competitors-and the Milan Cortina Winter Games almost matched that mark at 47%.
It took 130 years of Olympic history and a painstakingly gradual evolution to reach that point. But just last week, with far less fanfare, another gender-driven sea change took place when Kirsty Coventry, the first female president of the International Olympic Committee, stepped to the podium to deliver her remarks during the opening ceremony in Milan.
While it was striking to see a woman in the most powerful role in global sport, it wasn’t her gender that ultimately distinguished Coventry as a game-changer. It was her message and the humility and compassion with which she delivered it.
Coventry’s voice – not her tone, which was warm and welcoming, not her cadence, which reflected her Zimbabwe upbringing and her African roots – but her theme, which reached deeply and profoundly into the core mission of the Olympic Movement and strummed the heartstrings of the world’s yearning for harmony and unity during a time of bloody conflicts and angry divides.
The content of Coventry’s message gave the world new insights into the power, purpose and promise of the global movement she now guides. Her immediate focus was on the athletes – “This is your moment” – reminding us that the Games are only a stage and the athletes are the stars.
And then she personified the athletic feats yet to come as something far greater than sport alone:
“You’ll show us what it means to be human. To dream. To overcome. To respect one another. To care for each other. You’ll show us that strength isn’t just about winning – it’s about courage, empathy and heart … You will show the world how to live.”
Staying away from the diplomatic appeals and moral push for peace that had often marked the IOC’s ceremonial messages in the past, Coventry doubled down on the personal as universal.
She rooted the Olympic spirit-the spirit embodied in each of the athletes at Games-in the communities that nurtured their talents and lifted them toward this global opportunity.
And she used her own community as a universal proof point: “In Africa, where I’m from, we have a word: ubuntu. It means: I am because we are. That we can only rise by lifting others. That our strength comes from caring for each other. No matter where you come from, we all know this spirit – it lives and breathes in every community.”
Coventry is only 42 – the youngest IOC president since Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Games, entered the office in 1896 at 33 – but she stepped into her role with the assurance and savoir faire of a seasoned leader.
She did not have to pound the podium; she did not use any facial gestures or theatrics or modulate her voice like an actor, she simply spoke with a quiet certitude rooted in her own conviction of what is true: that the Olympic Movement and the Games it produces offer the world something rare and unique – an opportunity for everyone to join in a shared experience to celebrate the astonishingly beautiful advancement of human excellence against the backdrop of our shared history and the Olympic record books.
As a double-gold Olympic swimmer and seven-time medalist, Coventry speaks from a place of authenticity. Her identification with the athletes and the unique circumstances they each face grew deeper and deeper as she served on the IOC’s Athletes’ Commission for eight years from 2013 to 2021, emerging as a champion of their rights and needs, a qualification that put her in a strong position to run for the presidency when German Thomas Bach‘s term ended in 2025.
As she spoke of empathy and caring – of lifting each other up and showing the world how to live – Coventry called on the Olympic athletes and the broader Olympic family to embody the solidarity the world needs now: to become the reality of the hopes that the rituals and symbols of the Games have long stood for.
As the first woman to preside over any edition of the Olympic Games, winter or summer, Coventry was bound to symbolize the change so many women have been fighting for. But she brought far more to the podium last Friday night than a change of gender. In the words of her stunning opening ceremony speech, she made it clear the Olympic Movement and global sport have found a new voice – and that voice has a powerful new message of hope for our world.
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