Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe has been elected the first female president of the International Olympic Committee, and the 10th president overall of the organization that was founded in 1894.
IOC members voted Coventry, a seven-time Olympic swimming medalist, into the role’s eight-year term (renewable for an extra four years) on Thursday.
Coventry will also become the first person from Africa to serve as IOC President once her term starts June 24. The previous nine presidents were men from Europe or the U.S.
“This is an extraordinary moment,” she said in an address to IOC members moments after outgoing IOC President Thomas Bach made the announcement. “As a 9-year-old girl, I never thought that I’d be standing up here one day getting to give back to this incredible movement of ours.”
At 41, she will be the second-youngest IOC President after Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics. Coubertin began his 29-year term at age 33 in 1896, the year of the first modern Olympics in Athens, Greece.
Thursday’s vote was held in Costa Navarino, Greece, about 60 miles south of Olympia, site of the Ancient Olympics.
Coventry received a majority 49 out of 97 votes in the first and only round, followed by Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain with 28 votes. Had she not received a majority, the voting would have gone to a second round with the lowest vote-getter from the first round eliminated.
The other candidates were fellow IOC members Prince Feisal Al Hussein, Sebastian Coe, Johan Eliasch, David Lappartient and Morinari Watanabe.
Mrs Kirsty Coventry has been elected as the 10th President of the International Olympic Committee at the 144th IOC Session in Costa Navarino. pic.twitter.com/Dv8Tfbecf6
Coventry succeeds Bach, who served the maximum 12 years in the role, leading the organization through the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Wednesday, Bach was elected IOC Honorary President for Life.
“Some will say it was such difficult 12 years, and you have made sacrifice,” Bach, a 1976 Olympic fencing champion for Germany, said in a tearful address to IOC members Wednesday. “I didn’t make a single sacrifice in these 12 years. I am grateful that after my career as an athlete, I could continue to live my passion for sport. And I’m grateful that you allowed me to give back to sport what I have received from the Olympic Movement. My gold medal has changed my life, and with this office as IOC President, I had the opportunity to help others to change a life, and this is why you see a very happy man.”
In Coventry’s eight-year term, the Olympic hosts will be Milan Cortina, Italy (2026), Los Angeles (2028), the French Alps (2030) and Brisbane, Australia (2032).
Coventry was born in Harare, Zimbabwe, made her Olympic debut in 2000 a day after turning 17 and then matriculated at Auburn University.
She won the 200m backstroke at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics among seven total medals between those two Games. Zimbabwe’s only other Olympic medal was the gold in women’s field hockey in 1980.
Coventry has been an IOC member since 2013, when she first joined the athletes’ commission. She retired from competition after her fifth Olympics in 2016.
Now she will be the first Olympic swimmer to serve as IOC president.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” she said in her address to IOC members, “and now we’ve got some work together.”
Kirsty Coventry delivers her acceptance speech after being elected as the 10th President of the International Olympic Committee, and the first female President in IOC history. pic.twitter.com/3BXf9kK0dI
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