In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) hon­orary mem­ber Dick Pound said the IOC vot­ing process “makes the Vat­i­can con­clave look like it’s open house”.

Ground break­ing, land­mark, his­toric but con­tro­ver­sial, is how Zim­bab­we Sports Min­is­ter Kirsty Coven­try’s his­toric elec­tion as IOC pres­i­dent has been de­scribed. Com­ments from the glob­al Olympic move­ment re­flect a hope­ful tone but there is an un­der­tone of im­mense cau­tion.

Re­gard­less of where one may stand on the mat­ter, there is the long-stand­ing and time­less say­ing: “It’s not what you do but how you do it”.

Coven­try is un­der a cloud—the Thomas Bach cloud. That’s a re­al­i­ty she can­not es­cape or de­ny. She must now not on­ly meet but ex­ceed ex­pec­ta­tions. The whole world will be watch­ing with cau­tious op­ti­mism.

Some have said her elec­tion has to do with the ab­solute po­lit­i­cal pow­er of Bach and while it’s good for the Olympic move­ment, it’s a re­flec­tion of Bach’s vice-like grip on the IOC Mem­ber­ship.

Coven­try is Africa’s most dec­o­rat­ed Olympian and will be­gin her eight-year term as the head of the glob­al Olympic body in June. She will suc­ceed Ger­many’s Bach who has been pres­i­dent of the IOC since 2013. It will be ex­ceed­ing­ly naive of Coven­try not to take on board the em­pir­i­cal da­ta sur­round­ing her his­toric elec­tion. She must over­come the bit­ter­sweet re­al­i­ty of her his­toric elec­tion and the per­cep­tion of many who, notwith­stand­ing their gra­cious pub­lic ut­ter­ances, have their doubts, re­sent­ment and reser­va­tions.

At an IOC “Olymp­ism in Ac­tion” fo­rum in Ar­genti­na back in Oc­to­ber 2018, I said the next IOC pres­i­dent should be a woman. I will not re­hash the push­back I en­dured at the time. Save and ex­cept to say, now that it has ac­tu­al­ly hap­pened, the band­wag­o­nists are out in all their glo­ry.

While the elec­tion of Coven­try can be seen as a sig­nif­i­cant win for in­clu­siv­i­ty and progress, she will have to show that she can rise to the oc­ca­sion and demon­strate the nec­es­sary com­pe­tence, skill set and lead­er­ship.

The IOC is at a cross­roads. Re­gard­less of the per­cep­tion that she rep­re­sents con­ti­nu­ity and ex­change rather than the change that the IOC bad­ly needs at this time.

She has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to prove her doubters and crit­ics wrong. In time to come, re­gard­less of his al­leged arm-twist­ing, some even call it bul­ly­ing, it may well turn out to be a pos­i­tive Thomas Bach mas­ter­stroke.

There is a lot at stake and hard-won gains can be erod­ed. Her suc­cess or fail­ure will res­onate far be­yond her tenure. It will serve as a test for the fu­ture of gen­der equal­i­ty in sports at the high­est lev­el. Some may well say it’s mas­sive­ly un­fair on Coven­try, but to whom much is giv­en much is ex­pect­ed.

As some­one who has cham­pi­oned for women to be giv­en lead­er­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties, I al­so ap­pre­ci­ate that be­ing a woman shouldn’t be the on­ly cri­te­ri­on. There are women who have been giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty and have failed to rise to the oc­ca­sion. I will be the first to ac­knowl­edge where they have failed. The con­se­quence of lead­er­ship fail­ure is re­moval.

The IOC is the IOC. And while there are IOC mem­bers who be­lieve that there were bet­ter-qual­i­fied women than Kirsty Coven­try, Thomas Bach thought oth­er­wise. That’s democ­ra­cy and good gov­er­nance IOC style.

The IOC mem­ber­ship will move on and close ranks be­hind Coven­try. That is what the IOC usu­al­ly do.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Kirsty Coven­try, Africa, the Glob­al South and Aquat­ics. The Eu­ro­pean hege­mo­ny has been bro­ken. Time will tell if it is a net ben­e­fit to the IOC and women in lead­er­ship.