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Decorated former Olympic swimmer Kirsty Coventry has been appointed the first female and first African president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), beating six other candidates including Seb Coe.
The 41-year-old, who is Zimbabwe’s sports minister and a two-time Olympic champion, was the youngest and only female candidate and the known favourite of outgoing president Thomas Bach.
Thursday’s highly secretive election, held in the luxury Costa Navarino resort in Greece, was expected to be a close battle with multiple rounds of voting.
But Coventry swept the field, winning the required 50% or more of the votes in the first round to bring the election to an unexpectedly quick conclusion.
“This is not just a huge honour, but it is a reminder of my commitment to every single one of you that I will lead this organisation with so much pride, and I will make all of you very, very proud and hopefully extremely confident in the decision you’ve taken today,” she said in a short acceptance speech.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and now we’ve got some work together. This race was an incredible race and it made us better, made us a stronger movement. Thank you very much for this moment, and thank you very much for this honour.”
Coventry had been one of the frontrunners, alongside World Athletics president Coe and the highly-fancied and influential Juan Antonio Samaranch, an IOC vice-president and the son of the IOC president of the same name, whose tenure ran from 1980 to 2001.
The other candidates were Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan and three presidents of sports governing bodies: Johan Eliasch of skiing, cycling's David Lappartient and Morinari Watanabe of gymnastics.
Coventry will officially take over in June.
More to follow
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