- IOC President Kirsty Coventry pledged to protect the Olympic movement amid global changes.
- Coventry emphasized the importance of adapting to geopolitical shifts to maintain the relevance and importance of the Olympic Games.
- Despite political change, though, she said the IOC's focus is sports, not political issues.
SALT LAKE CITY — With world leaders grappling in nearby Davos, Switzerland, with President Donald Trump's push to take over Greenland, the head of the International Olympic Committee pledged Wednesday to protect the Olympic movement.
"I think it is not just our job, but our duty to the entire movement to really be on top of this and understand the ever-changing landscape," IOC President Kirsty Coventry told reporters during an online roundtable discussion ahead of the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, Italy.
The United States is set to host two future Olympics, the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles and the 2034 Winter Games in Utah, but Coventry said the IOC has not had "any formal communication just yet with the White House" about the impact of growing geopolitical tensions.
That could come in Italy. The White House announced over the weekend the U.S. delegation to the Feb. 6 Opening Ceremonies will be led by Vice President JD Vance and include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but not Trump.
Coventry, an Olympic champion swimmer from Zimbabwe, said she "is looking forward" to meeting Vance.
Shortly after her election nearly a year ago as the IOC's first woman and first African leader, she had said of Trump that she'd "been dealing with, let's say, difficult men in high positions since I was 20 years old."
Changes to the world order are coming quickly, she said from IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, when asked to respond to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's warning to other nations Tuesday about America's agenda that if "you're not at the table, you are on the menu."
Now, Coventry said, "just like we see in other sectors like technology, things change daily. So we're keeping a pulse on it. I think we have to, in order to ensure the relevance of the Games, the meaningfulness of the Games, the importance of the Games, remains at its peak."
She said the IOC "will work extremely hard in order to protect the Olympic Games, and the platform the Olympic Games has. Because I think, again, it showcases how we could live," with thousands of athletes from around the world living and competing side by side.
What that protection looks like remains to be seen, although Coventry said through the IOC's ongoing review that she ordered after taking office in mid-2025, "we are starting to see our priorities coming out, where we are starting to see potential ideas in and around strategies."
She said those findings will be considered "as an internal organization and as a sports movement."
Sports have a unifying effect, Coventry said, because "you don't have to speak the same language in order to understand what each other are trying to achieve or have an appreciation for each other."
She said that to her, "those, especially in today's world, are values that we need to ensure we are protecting and ensuring that they are being acknowledged as really important values for our communities and for our families and for our sons and daughters."
Still, Coventry made it clear there are limits to the IOC's involvement in the controversy over the U.S. president's agenda.
"I also want to make it clear that that is not our remit," the IOC president told reporters. "We are a sports organization. It is not within our remit to comment on sovereignty and political conversations."
