7-time Olympic gold medalist Kirsty Coventry, 39, was re-appointed because the Sports activities Minister of Zimbabwe earlier this month. She has held the position since September 2018 and confronted a big problem after accusations of being ineffective within the position, punctuated by battle with the Zimbabwe Soccer Affiliation (ZIFA).
The ZIFA was suspended by international governing physique FIFA in 2022 due to accusations that employees sexually harassed feminine referees and that the group had ‘monetary irregularities.’
Coventry advised Zimbabwe’s parliament that ZIFA misappropriated a part of $2 million in federal funding and that some officers have been suspended for sexual harassment, however members of the ZIFA board accused her of mendacity.
FIFA finally established a Normalization Committee to run ZIFA till June 2024.
Coventry was re-appointed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa because the Minister for Sports activities, Artwork and Recreation after Mnangagwa gained a contentious and chaotic election dominated by debate over the economic system and inflation and shrouded by accusations of election fraud. Mnangawa was elected to the primary of two allowabale 5 12 months phrases in 2017. He’s the nation’s third president since gaining independence from the UK in 1980.
Zimbabwe despatched solely 5 athletes to the Tokyo 2020 Summer season Olympics, incomes no medals for the third straight Video games. That was a dramatic lower from the 31 athletes despatched to the Rio 2016 Video games and the nation’s smallest delegation to a Summer season Video games since Amsterdam in 1928 (2).
Coventry, who gained the 200 again at each the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, is answerable for all-but-one of the nation’s Olympic medals all-time; the opposite was a gold medal in discipline hockey on the 1980 Olympics.
Despite Coventry’s success and her position as sporting minister, the game of swimming hasn’t seen a lot growth within the nation since her retirement. Zimbabwe’s two 2021 Olympians in swimming have been Peter Wetzlar, who positioned forty second within the 100 free (50.31), and Donata Katai, who positioned thirty fourth within the 100 backstroke (1:02.73).
Wetzlar was raised in South Africa and educated in the US on the College of Kentucky. Katai, the nation’s flag bearer at these video games, was born in Zimbabwe and raised there earlier than matriculating to Princeton College in the US. Katai was the primary Black swimmer to characterize Zimbabwe on the Olympics in a rustic the place greater than 99% of the inhabitants is of African origin.
