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.
"It's a really powerful signal," she smiled as the victory sunk in. "It's a signal that we're truly global and that we have evolved into an organisation that is truly open to diversity and we're going to continue."
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.
The remaining votes went to Frenchman David Lappartient, Jordan’s Prince Feisal, Swedish-born Johan Eliasch, and Japan’s Morinari Watanabe.
Coventry’s victory at the IOC Session in Greece was announced by current president Thomas Bach, who will officially hand over the reins on June 24th.
Coventry said in her acceptance speech: “This is an extraordinary moment. As a nine year old girl, I never thought that I would be standing up here one day getting to give back to this incredible movement of ours.
“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, with the values at the core, and I will make all of you very, very proud and hopefully extremely confident in the decision that you’ve taken today.”
Coventry, seen in some quarters as the preferred candidate of outgoing president Bach, won gold in the 200 metres backstroke at the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games, out of a total of seven medals she won overall.
She was elected to the IOC Athletes’ Commission and served from 2013 to 2021. She was then voted in as an individual IOC member in 2021.
Coventry was on the IOC executive board which approved the eligibility criteria for the women’s boxing tournament at last summer’s Games in Paris, which drew criticism and controversy and made Coe “uncomfortable”.
Two fighters – Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting – won gold medals despite the International Boxing Association alleging they had been disqualified from the 2023 World Championships for failing to meet gender eligibility criteria.
Khelif is taking legal action over reports she has male XY chromosomes and insists she was born a woman and lives as a woman, while the IOC has condemned abuse directed at Khelif and Lin during and since the Games.
Coventry did admit at an event to present her manifesto to IOC members in January that the organisation needed to “learn lessons” from Paris.
“As a female athlete, you want to be able to walk onto a level playing field,” she said.
“Always, it’s our job as the IOC to ensure that we are going to create that environment, and that we are going to not just create a level playing field, but we’re going to create an environment that allows for every athlete to feel safe.” – Additional reporting: Reuters
