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Coventry’s offer for frightened and frustrated IOC staff: 'a single source of truth'

Change in IOC’s administration is set to begin with a SharePoint site and joint morning coffee catchups: unsettled staff can ask any questions they like, says the IOC President. During a video meeting attended by almost 600 employees, Coventry warned against negativity, rumours and silo thinking.

,   and  Jens Weinreich
11 min read
Fresh thinking, all of a sudden: that was the task at the internal workshop with the IOC directors on Monday at Olympic House in Lausanne.
"We are not living in a friendly world. And if we really want to defend our jobs, our positions and our future, we really need to to stick together."
Christophe De Kepper, Director General of the IOC, at the staff meeting on 24 March 2026

Subscribers will find out today how the IOC leadership intends to tackle the somewhat toxic atmosphere among staff in Lausanne and Madrid, how many wars and armed conflicts the IOC President currently counts, what the status of the Fit for the Future project is – and who is already positioning herself internally as Kirsty Coventry’s spokesperson and thus as Mark Adams’ successor.

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First things first: IOC staff are getting special leave over Easter. Everything will be fine, right after a busy week of meetings in Lausanne, at Olympic House.

  • Last Friday, Director General Christophe De Kepper met with the Staff Delegates.
  • On Monday, President Kirsty Coventry withdrew with just under two dozen highly paid directors for a Strategic Working Session, one of two meetings with the directors, where she urged them to completely rethink and redefine their areas of responsibility: "Be bold! Be brave! Be open!"
  • On Tuesday, this was followed by a virtual plenary meeting of all IOC staff from Lausanne (778) and Madrid (265). According to the chair of the meeting, Blandine Potemsky (Senior Manager Internal Communications), around 600 of the thousand or so staff took part – and I will report on that below.
  • A remote meeting of the IOC Executive Board is currently taking place, on Thursday, with the main theme being Fit for the Future.
  • In the afternoon, Coventry will hold a virtual press conference, to which invitations were sent out only yesterday. No one is expecting the announcement of initial results, but perhaps some personnel changes, and a few things to distract from more important issues. PR tricks, you know.

Let’s get started, including on personnel matters. Let’s hear two key messages from De Kepper and Coventry at the staff meeting.

Said the Director General:

"It's about the the culture of the organization and and this this culture needs to be based on on on respect. This is an important word because from respect comes trust and from trust comes enhanced collaboration."

Some staff members certainly took this as a subtle threat.

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