{"id":215034,"date":"2025-11-27T09:31:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T07:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/namibia\/africa-ioc-chief-coventry-in-tears-as-2026-winter-games-torch-relay-sets-off\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T09:31:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T07:31:06","slug":"africa-ioc-chief-coventry-in-tears-as-2026-winter-games-torch-relay-sets-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/namibia\/africa-ioc-chief-coventry-in-tears-as-2026-winter-games-torch-relay-sets-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa: IOC Chief Coventry in Tears As 2026 Winter Games Torch Relay Sets Off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"35\"><em>New International Olympic Committee chief Kirsty Coventry fought back tears on Wednesday as she urged nations to come together in the 2026 Winter Games, as the torch relay set off from ancient Olympia in Greece.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"30\">Addressing guests during the torch ceremony at the Olympia archaeological museum, as the first woman to head the Olympic movement, a tearful Coventry stressed the power of sport to unite.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"28\">&#8220;I wasn&#8217;t supposed to get emotional, but this place is very special,&#8221; the 42-year-old Zimbabwean, who&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202511270026.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Namibia\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/namibia\/\">Namibia<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New International Olympic Committee chief Kirsty Coventry fought back tears on Wednesday as she urged nations to come together in the 2026 Winter Games, as the torch relay set off from ancient Olympia in Greece. Addressing guests during the torch ceremony at the Olympia archaeological museum, as the first woman to head the Olympic movement, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":215035,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[723],"tags":[258,256,6510,18748,6731,9161,724,257,7141,7123,254,23916,7178,22052],"class_list":["post-215034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-namibia","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-chief","tag-coventry","tag-games","tag-ioc","tag-namibia-news","tag-news","tag-relay","tag-sets","tag-south-africa-today","tag-tears","tag-torch","tag-winter"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}