Zimbabwean Sports Minister Kirsty Coventry has been elected as the new president of the International Olympic President (IOC), replacing Thomas Bach who steps down in June after a 12-year-term.
The 41-year-old former Olympic swimmer and gold medallist – who is Africa’s most decorated Olympian – is the first woman, the first African and the youngest person to hold the role.
She beat other hot contender Sebastian Coe, the UK’s two-time Olympic 1500m champion, who oversaw the London 2012 Games before taking charge of World Athletics.
Coventry is the 10th person to hold the position after Bach.
Voting took place during the IOC’s 144th session in a luxury hotel in the beach resort of Costa Navarino in Greece, close to Olympia, the birthplace of the ancient games which inspired the modern-day tournament.
Described as the sport world’s equivalent of the Vatican’s conclave voting procedure for a new pope, the election was preceded by intense lobbying campaigns by all the candidates.
The other candidates included Spanish businessman Juan Antonio Samaranch, who is currently the IOC’s vice-president, Sweden-born businessman and ski federation president Johan Eliasch, Japan’s Morinari Watanabe – head of the international gymnastics federation, French cycling chief David Lappartient and Jordanian Prince Feisal al-Hussein.
Key issues on the table included the inclusion of transgender women in female sporting categories, how to modernise the games and make them sustainable and environmentally friendly and the embrace of technology.
