When the comms machine stalls: What Kirsty Coventry's press conference tells us about leadership under pressure

By Adam Powell

Kirsty Coventry had a good Winter Olympics. Milano Cortina 2026 was her first Games as IOC President – the first woman, the first Zimbabwean, the first African to hold the role – and the general view was that she delivered. Athletes were happy. The closing ceremony speech went well. She came into the job with a lot of goodwill, and for two weeks she justified it.

Then came the closing press conference.

What happened

During an hour-long session with the world's media, Coventry was asked about big, live issues – including whether Germany would host the 2036 Olympics (a sensitive topic because of the 1936 Berlin Games) and a New York Times report linking Russia's anti-doping chief to the Sochi doping scandal. Several times, she said she wasn't aware.

That on its own is manageable. No leader can have a prepared answer for everything. What made it worse was what came next: Coventry looked at her communications team and said, in effect, that someone might need to be fired for leaving her so unprepared.

The remark dominated the coverage. Everything positive about the Games got buried. The headline became: IOC President threatens to sack staff.

Why it matters

This isn't just about one person having a rough day. It's about what happens when the gap between preparation and performance gets exposed - and the lessons that apply to anyone working in communications.

When you don't have an answer, you still need a response. There are simple techniques for this: acknowledge the question, commit to coming back with more information, or steer towards what you do know. What you don't do is publicly blame your team. That becomes the story.

Blaming your team in public damages trust. Even said in frustration, telling the world's media that someone on your team should be fired sends a signal to every person working for you. It says: when pressure hits, I'll point at you. For a comms team that needs to be fast, honest and confident — especially inside an organisation as politically complex as the IOC — that kind of moment is seriously damaging.

Not every communications failure is the comms team's fault. When a leader struggles at a press conference, the natural reaction is to blame the PR team. Sometimes that's fair. But often the problem sits somewhere else — in how information gets shared within the leadership team, in the quality of preparation, or simply in the leader's own readiness on the day. The phrase "PR disaster" gets used every time something goes wrong publicly, no matter where the actual mistake happened.

The bigger picture

Coventry inherited a communications set-up with three senior people in charge, each with different histories and loyalties from the previous IOC president's era. Managing that kind of transition — where a new leader needs the comms team working for them, but the team still carries the culture of the old regime — is one of the hardest things to get right in any organisation.

The incident also sparked debate about media training. Some commentators argued it doesn't work. That misses the point. The real question isn't whether coaching helps in general — it's whether the leader was prepared for the specific questions that were clearly coming. Both the Germany 2036 question and the Russian doping story were all over the news. They shouldn't have been a surprise.

What's in Coventry's favour

One bad press conference shouldn't define a presidency. Coventry was only elected last year. She still has strong support from the IOC membership and the media. The rest of her Games went well. She's still seen as a fresh start after the Bach era.

But it does set a marker. The next big test - possibly the Russia question at the Paralympics - will show whether the IOC's comms operation has adapted or whether the same gaps are still there.

Three lessons for anyone in communications

One: always have a fallback line. If the briefing doesn't cover the question, you still need something to say.

Two: the leader is the message. The best briefing notes in the world don't help if the person delivering them hasn't absorbed them. Preparation isn't just about what's written down — it's about what's understood.

Three: protect the team in public, fix it in private. The moment you blame your comms team on camera, you create a bigger story than whatever you were being asked about. And you make it harder for that team to back you up next time.

Coventry has time, goodwill and support on her side. How she uses them will tell us a lot about her presidency — and about whether the IOC is building a communications function fit for what's ahead.

Adam Powell is a strategic advisor and communications specialist working across energy, defence, culture, and sport.