The Sunday Mail
Tinashe Kusema, Deputy Sports Editor
WHEN historians sit down to answer the timeless question of who actually is Zimbabwe’s greatest sportsperson of all time — or GOAT as the expression goes — one of the names sure to dominate that conversation is that of the Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation Kirsty Coventry.
Given that sport is usually a numbers game, in a career spanning over five Olympics, Coventry has a total of seven medals at the quadrennial global sports showcase, and these include two gold, four silver and a bronze medal, making her the most decorated African Olympian.
This is in addition to the eight World Championship medals, 18 All-Africa Games accolades, a Commonwealth gong and a slew of local, African and world records.
With statistics like these, it is almost impossible not to count her as the GOAT.
That is unless you are the minister herself.
“I still get moved and honoured when people say that, and regard me as being one of the greatest athletes that the country has produced,” said Coventry. “I think, for me, it just goes back to the fact that it was a childhood dream to compete at this level, and I have been blessed enough to get this far and achieve all I have achieved. Personally, I do not think there is one particular person I would say is the greatest, because we have produced so many amazing athletes. If you look at our 1980 girls’ hockey team, Nick Price, Peter Ndlovu, Benjani Mwaruwaru and most recently Tendai Mtawarira, these are athletes with diverse attributes that I respect and admire.
“They have so many accomplishments to their names and I have admired the way they handled their careers,” she said.
Having walked away from the water some two years ago, the 36-year-old has reached that point in her life where giving back is now her singular aim.
From a global perspective, she is very active in the Olympic movement. She sits on numerous boards such as the Athletes’ Commission (2018-) which she chairs, the Coordination Commission for the Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2022 (2018-) and is a member of commissions like the Coordination for the Games of the XXXII Olympiad Tokyo 2020 (2014-) and Olympic Solidarity (2014-) Closer to home, she has eased her way back into the normal life and is now wife to Tyrone Seward and mother to one-year-old Ella. She is the Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation Minister.
These are all hats she wears with pride and honour, yet carrying them with poise and humility. She has somehow managed to stay grounded in the face of all these accomplishments, accolades and praises. Coventry is not some larger-than-life personality, but your typical “girl next door” of sorts.
She has had her moments of self-doubt, regret, strength and weakness.
As she slowly settles into her political life, the coronavirus pandemic has hit her, and hit her hard too, like any other person around the world. She has her own struggles and experienced loss, too, courtesy of the pandemic.
“It is interesting, but some time ago, I was chatting with my sister, a few athletes from the world over, friends and family on this pandemic. They shared their experiences and it was the usual stuff — meetings being cancelled, not being able to train, the lockdowns and the challenges of finding basic goods under lockdowns. I think what the coronavirus has done over the world is that it has humanised us, everyone is going through the same thing, and I do not remember there being a time such an event affected this number of people. Even during the world wars, some countries were able to function, while others suffered.
“But with this pandemic, it has impacted everyone the same way, and it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are or from, whether you have a lot of money, or you don’t have a lot of money,” she said. She also shared her own awakening experience with the virus.
“The passing of Zororo Makamba was (a shock) for me. Obviously, he was the first death for Zimbabwe; but more importantly, someone I considered a friend. His death really hit me hard and made this pandemic more real. Prior to that, I had just been seeing how the coronavirus was affecting the world, sporting fraternity and people I knew, but Zororo’s death was a bit too close to home and made it all that more real,” she said.
Coventry and Zororo met soon after her appointment as minister in 2018, and she says “we established a quick and easy friendship” with the late son of Zimbabwean businessman James Makamba.
“We just created a friendship over how to engage the youth and he was doing a couple of things in that area.
“He was someone I was hoping to put on the Zimbabwe Youth Council; in fact, he was on the shortlist of candidates. I saw him as someone who was capable of leading young people, young Zimbabweans, in a way that was both innovative and unique,” she said.
But there is no doubting that it is Coventry’s exploits in the pool that make her the greatest of them all on this land in the last four decades of Uhuru. She lists her first and final Olympics Games as the most memorable meets. “I was blessed with such a long career and it will be difficult to pick the one or two from the lot. However, the one that comes to mind are the first Games. “Winning in Athens was really special for a number of reasons; firstly, as I had my first Olympic medal there, and just hearing the national anthem play for me was truly memorable.
“Greece is also the birthplace of the Games and that just made that experience 10 times better.”
“From the age of nine, taking part and winning at the Olympics was a goal I set out for myself; it was my singular drive.
“However, I remember on the plane back, my mum asked if I was ready for what awaited me and I did not understand what she meant until I arrived back at the airport.
“Seeing all those people waiting and cheering for me was something else, and it was at that moment that I began to understand that I am not just representing myself and my family.
“I was representing an entire nation and I carried myself as such from that moment.”
She also managed to get a special send-off, with almost everyone that had played a part in her career on hand to see her off and congratulate her on a good swim at the Rio Olympics.a
