With the world’s conflicts getting “worse and worse every day,” International Olympic Committee leaders reaffirmed their commitment to advancing peace through sport, the organization’s new president, Kirsty Coventry, told reporters Friday.
Pressed about the impact of last week’s fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University in Orem, Coventry said the concerns raised earlier in the day during an IOC Executive Board meeting in Milan, Italy, weren’t focused on one specific event.
“I asked the Executive Board that we have a discussion looking at things in the global context, so looking at all the conflicts, all the controversial points that have happened, whether it be in the U.S. or anywhere else,” she said.
The 41-year-old from Zimbabwe, elected earlier this year as the first woman and first African to lead the Switzerland-based IOC, said that’s how she intends to deal with the world’s troubles going forward.
“I don’t think it’s just one event or we can take just one conflict over the other. There’s more and more things that are not our proudest moments as humanity, right, happening around the world,” Coventry said. “I think we have to acknowledge all of them.”
The focus during the closed-door discussion was on “where do we stand and what do we stand for” as the world’s top Olympic officials, she said, adding, “it was very clear from all of us that we stand for our values. In today’s world, we believe in those values.”
The IOC values are “important to be able to share with the world. They’re important to spread. They’re important to be able to educate. They’re important to, at the end of the day, build a better world through sport and to unify people, and to break down barriers,” Coventry said.
A statement issued later Friday, titled “IOC reaffirms: Sport must unite the world in peaceful competition,” says the Executive Board “stands firm in its belief that sport must remain a beacon of hope — a force that brings the whole world together in peaceful competition.”
The world is described in the statement as “shaken by conflict and division.”
Concerns are raised about “the disruption of competitions across the world, the restriction of access to host countries for athletes, and the boycotting and cancellation of competitions due to political tensions,” actions that “deprive athletes of their right to compete peacefully.”
A new working group charged with protecting “the fundamental principles of Olympism” has been created with the aim of “ensuring that the IOC, the Olympic Games and sport remain politically neutral and can uphold their mission to unite the world in peaceful competition.”
Coventry said she will be in the United States next week for the United Nations General Assembly and to meet with heads of state there. She indicated the meetings are still being scheduled when asked if she planned to sit down with U.S. President Donald Trump.
After Coventry was elected IOC president in March, she told reporters asking about Trump that she’d “been dealing with, let’s say, difficult men in high positions since I was 20 years old,” learning “that communication will be key. That is something that will happen early on.”
She said then that she believed Trump, who has called for the IOC to bar transgender athletes from the Olympics and issued travel bans, “is a huge lover of sports. He will want these Games to be significant. He will want them to be a success and we will not waver from our values.”