Armed robbers broke into the house of Zimbabwe of the parents of Kirsty Coventry and determined them before they left with sporty ducks who belong to the new international Olympic Committee President.
Among the stolen items, swimming costumes were worn by Coventry, 41, when she won gold medals at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and the 2008 matches in Beijing.
The thieves also took $ 15,000 (£ 11,500) in cash, jewelry with an estimated value of £ 46,000 and three hunting slips, according to the police.
Various items removed by the invaders, who have tied Robert Edwin and Lyn Coventry with shoelaces, have recovered since then, the police told local reporters.
The robbery took place on March 10, ten days before Coventry was elected IOC president.
Three men were arrested, two brothers who would appear in court on Friday.
Coventry, the only athlete that has won individual Olympic gold medals for Zimbabwe, saw the competition of six other candidates, including Great -Britain, Seb Coe, to become the first female leader of the IOC.
But her performance in securing 49 of the 97 available voices available in the first round of Thursday elections in Greece is not without controversy.
Kirsty Coventry, the only athlete that has won individual Olympic gold medals for Zimbabwe, abandoned the competition of six other candidates to become the first female leader of IOC
Swimming costumes worn by Coventry, who were seen here who won the first of her two Olympic gold medals in Athens in 2004, belonged to items stolen from her parental home by armed robbers stolen
Coventry brings her second gold medal at the 2008 matches in Beijing. The police have told local reporters that various items stolen from her parents have recovered since then
Since 2018, Coventry has served as Minister of Youth and Sport in the cabinet of Emmerson Mnangagwa, who in 2017 Robert Mugabe deposited as President of Zimbabwe and supervised a brutal action against opposition figures, supporters and journalists.
Sport in Zimbabwe has not flourished on Coventry's watch. In 2022, FIFA imposed a ban on 18 months of international competition at the Zimbabwe Football Association about the government's interference.
Coventry ignored the calls for her to resign in protest against the corruption and abuse of her government.
In 2020, in what was seen as a reward for her silence, she was offered the lease and accepted on a part of a farm that had been stolen more than two decades ago at the peak of Mugabe's violent land grandy.
Ben Freeth, 55, a Zimbabwean farmer and human rights activist whose family also lost in the land grip and burned down their house, said that he was “shocked that the IOC should make her president after her record in the Zanu government and collapses for the temptation to take on a farm that is not complied with.”
Coventry, who has sworn to introduce a general ban on transgender athletes that compete with female Olympic sports, will probably be confronted with questions about her involvement in the participation of two female hunters in the Paris competitions last year.
She was part of the IOC Council that approved rules that ultimately gold medal winners Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting were able to compete, despite the International Boxing Association that claimed that they were not eligible for the eligible of gender.
The pronunciation of the IBA meant that the hunters were disqualified from the 2023 world championships.
“My attitude is that we will protect the female category and female athletes,” said Coventry. 'I want to collaborate with the international federations and I want the IOC to take on a leading role.
“We are going to bring everyone together to sit down and have a little more input in the discussion.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has objected to any favorable consideration of Zimbabwe's application for takeover to the Commonwealth. Mugabe pulled the country out of the block in 2003, one year after it was suspended for attacks from the farm, election rigging and violations of rights.
