Coventry becomes first woman and first African to lead IOC
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PYLOS: Kirsty Coventry smashed through the International Olympic Committee’s glass ceiling on Thursday to become the organisation’s first female and first African president in its 130-year history.
The Zimbabwean swimming great, already a towering figure in Olympic circles, emerged victorious to replace Thomas Bach, securing the top job in world sport and ushering in a new era for the Games.
Coventry needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Bach, winning an immediate overall majority in the secret ballot with 49 of the available 97 votes.
She beat Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. into second place, the Spaniard winning 28 votes. Britain’s Sebastian Coe, considered one of the front runners in the days leading up to the vote, came third with eight votes.
Samaranch was bidding to emulate his father of the same name who led the Olympic movement for 21 years and World Athletics president Coe was seeking to become the first Briton.
For both, their dreams of being IOC president one day are over, owing to their ages.
Ski federation chief Johan Eliasch, Morinari Watanabe, president of the international gymnastics federation, cycling head David Lappartient and Prince Feisal al-Hussein were the other four candidates.
None of that quartet garnered more than four votes.
“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,” a beaming Coventry, who was strongly believed to be Bach’s favoured candidate, told her fellow IOC members at the luxury seaside resort in Greece’s southwestern Peloponnese which hosted the IOC Session.
“I will make all of you very, very proud, and hopefully extremely confident with the choice you’ve taken today, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
“Now we’ve got some work together and I’d like to thank the candidates — this race was an incredible race and it made us better, it made us a stronger movement. I know from the conversations I’ve had with every single one of you how much stronger our movement is going to be.”
On Monday, Bach refused to be drawn on whether he backed Coventry, saying only that a new era “requires new leaders”.
Although she fought a low-key media campaign compared to Coe and Samaranch Junior, her lobbying was so effective that one seriously ill member specifically flew to Greece to vote for her.
Questions had been raised about Coventry being a minister in a Zimbabwean government whose election in 2023 was declared undemocratic and unfair.
However, it made little impact with her electorate.
The seven-time Olympic medallist joined the IOC’s Athletes Commission in 2012, and her election to the top job signals a new era for the IOC, with expectations that she will bring a fresh perspective to pressing issues such as athlete rights, the gender debate, and the sustainability of the Games.
A champion of sport development in Africa, Coventry has pledged to expand Olympic participation and ensure the Games remain relevant to younger generations.
She also inherits the complex task of navigating relations with global sports federations and sponsors while maintaining the IOCs financial stability, which has relied heavily on its multibillion-dollar broadcasting and sponsorship deals.
As she takes the helm, the global sporting community will be watching closely to see how she shapes the future of the world’s biggest multi-sport organisation.
Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2025
