New IOC chief sets ambitious goals to strengthen, expand Olympic movement

Kirsty Coventry, the newly elected president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), expressed her aspirations to strengthen the Olympic movement by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance athlete development and expand its global appeal.

In an exclusive interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN) in Costa Navarino, Greece, Coventry shared her vision for the future of the IOC while highlighting AI's transformative potential in sports.

She emphasized the importance of making athletes feel valued for their contributions, believing that this sense of recognition could contribute to the building of a stronger Olympic movement.

"There are so many different opportunities for each stakeholder to play a very specific role within our movement, and I just want to make sure that I'm going to be able to create a platform for each player to really feel valued and to feel that they are leaving a legacy for themselves and for the movement. And if we can do that and find ways to do that together we're going to create a much stronger overall Olympic movement," Coventry said.

She also highlighted the Olympic AI Agenda, launched in April last year, which seeks to utilize AI to broaden the movement's global reach and deliver essential support to athletes worldwide.

"I think it's going to be a game changer, really, being able to embrace. And we launched our AI agenda last year and we need to leverage off of that. There are a lot of recommendations in there, very strong recommendations that are going to allow for us to reach new regions, be able to identify talent in the most rural parts of our globe and that so exciting. And then how do we take that further, how do we then get those athletes access to coaches and to trainers and to doctors and to nutritionists and how do we get them support? So all of those different steps, I would love to see us working on so that we have a greater reach across the globe," said Coventry.

Coventry, 41, was elected as the 10th IOC president on Thursday, becoming the first woman and the first African to lead the global Olympic movement.

She won the presidency in the first round of voting during the 144th IOC Session in Greece and will take office after June 23, succeeding Thomas Bach.

Coventry has served as Zimbabwe's Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts, and Recreation since 2018. A former Olympic swimming champion, she is one of Africa's most decorated athletes, with seven Olympic medals, including two golds.

New IOC chief sets ambitious goals to strengthen, expand Olympic movement

China Meteorological Administration (CMA) held a series of science popularization activities in Beijing on Sunday to mark the World Meteorological Day, which fell on March 23 this year.

The CMA campus opened its doors to the public, showcasing cutting-edge scientific and technological equipment and interactive projects to disseminate meteorological science knowledge.

"The CMA campus along with some meteorological observatories and science popularization venues in Beijing are open to the public. Specifically, the CMA campus opened indoor exhibition areas, including the China Meteorological Science and Technology Exhibition Hall, the science popularization exhibition area of the National Satellite Meteorological Center, the science popularization exhibition hall of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, as well as outdoor exhibition areas like the meteorological observation field, the meteorological science popularization area, and the meteorological equipment exhibition. Visitors had the opportunity to gain an insight into the latest advancements in 'meteorology +' technologies applied in fields such as aviation, navigation, and finance, while learning about the latest development process of meteorological satellites, intelligent meteorological observation equipment, and artificial weather modification operation systems," said Zhang Jie, deputy director of the CMA office.

At the event, many visitors had conversations with a smart weather prediction robot, called "Fenghe".

The large-scale meteorological service language model of "Fenghe", featuring 230 billion parameters, was collaboratively developed by the CMA Public Meteorological Service Center and Tsinghua University.

By incorporating professional and authoritative meteorological data, this system can engage with users through a conversational dialogue interface to address inquiries related to meteorological science education, weather forecast, travel planning, and early warning information.

"The 'Fenghe' model possesses five capabilities of providing meteorological knowledge, recognizing user intentions, interpreting and analyzing data, making decisions and inferences, and delivering meteorological service tools," explained Zhu Xiaoxiang, director of the CMA Public Meteorological Service Center.

China Meteorological Administration hold activities to mark World Meteorological Day