Former Olympic swimmer Kirsty Coventry has been appointed as the first female and first African president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and beat six other candidates, including Seb Coe.
The 41-year-old man, who is Zimbabwe’s minister of sport and a two-time Olympic champion, was the youngest and only female candidate and the well-known favorite of outgoing President Thomas Bach.
Thursday’s highly mysterious election, held in the luxury Costa Navarino resort in Greece, was expected to be a close struggle with various voting rounds.
But Coventry swept the field and won 51% of the vote in the first round to bring the election to an unexpected rapid conclusion, with a large majority needed. Bach himself announced her election to the role.
“It is not just a great honor, but it is a reminder of my dedication to each of you that I will lead this organization with such pride, and I will make you all very, very proud and hopefully very confident in the decision you made today,” she said in a brief acceptance speech.
“Thank you from my heart, and now we have some work together. This race was an incredible race and it made us better, we made a stronger movement. Thank you for this moment, and thank you for this honor. ‘
Coventry was one of the forerunners, along with world athletics president Coe and highly deserted and influential Juan Antonio Samaranch, an IOC vice president and the son of the IOC president of the same name, whose tenure was from 1980 to 2001.
The other candidates were Prince Feisal Al Hussein of Jordan and three presidents of sports governing bodies: Johan Eliasch of Ski, Cycling’s David Lappartient and Morinari Watanabe of Gymnastics.
Eventually, Coventry’s 49 total votes from Coventry Samaranch, which received 28, dwarfed, while COE received only eight and none of the remaining candidates received more than four votes. A total of 97 votes were cast.
The way in which the election works expected to benefit Coventry – although not necessarily to this extent – since the candidate’s countrymen cannot vote until they are eliminated. Observers thought that the European voice block would probably be divided into the early rounds between four candidates – Coe, Samaranch, Eliasch and Lappatient – which would give Coventry the chance to come forward first.
The 41-year-old man is significantly younger than most of the other candidates and had a fairly established voter base of women, African members and Bach loyalists, although the support of the incumbent also caused her controversy because he was supposed to remain neutral.
Her campaign largely pitched her as a continuity candidate, which would probably support in a conservative-learning organization. Although she has attracted some criticism of her role as Sports Minister of Zimbabwe’s controversial President Emmerson Mnangawa, it does not appear to have affected her campaign.
Coventry’s role as chairman of the IOC Athletes’ Commission, and background as the most decorated Olympic decorated Africa, was also thought to make her an attractive candidate for the growing number of former athletes in the IOC, such as the American Sprinter Allyson Felix.
The new president will be accepted to office on June 23, Olympic Day and starts an eight -year term, with a possible four -year renewal if the IOC membership approves it. She will tackle both the most powerful, but also the most difficult work in sports, with multiple challenges – including AI, rules for genealogy, the growing group of authoritarian regimes and the need to negotiate with Donald Trump over the 2028 Olympics – on the horizon.
