President Kirsty Coventry Says IOC Will Protect Female Sports<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The new President of the International Olympic Committee, Kirsty Coventry said the organization will protect the female category.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/new-president-kirsty-coventry-says-ioc-will-protect-female-sports\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New President Kirsty Coventry Says IOC Will Protect Female Sports\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The new President of the International Olympic Committee, Kirsty Coventry said the organization will protect the female category.\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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{"id":616012,"date":"2025-06-26T16:35:27","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T23:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=616012"},"modified":"2025-06-26T16:47:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T23:47:42","slug":"new-president-kirsty-coventry-says-ioc-will-protect-female-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/new-president-kirsty-coventry-says-ioc-will-protect-female-sports\/","title":{"rendered":"New President Kirsty Coventry Says IOC Will Protect Female Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

New President Kirsty Coventry Says IOC Will Protect Female Sports<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking at her first press conference since assuming the presidency of the International Olympic Committee earlier in the week, Kirsty Coventry<\/strong> declared that the IOC<\/a> will protect the female category. Coventry\u2019s approach is a shift from IOC\u2019s previous stance, which punted the topic to individual governing bodies.<\/p>\n

Transgender women competing in the female category has been a hot-button issue over the past few years, with the opposing sides citing inclusivity and fairness as their main arguments. Coventry indicated that the IOC will no longer be passive in addressing the topic, but will instead gather together experts and international federations when determining gender eligibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that there will be differences depending on the sport, but it was very clear from the members that we have to protect the female category, first and foremost to ensure fairness.\u201d said Coventry, who has replaced Thomas Bach as President. \u201cBut we need to do that with a scientific approach and the inclusion of the international federations who have already done a lot of work in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n

In June 2022, with the IOC leaving decisions concerning gender eligibility to various governing bodies, World Aquatics<\/a> adopted a policy that does not allow transgender women to compete in the female category if they transitioned after going through male puberty.<\/p>\n

A seven-time Olympic medalist, Coventry emphasized the need to protect the female category during her campaign to be IOC President. The 41-year-old from Zimbabwe is a seven-time Olympic medalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"