Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe is the first African and female IOC leader

As the first African and female president of the International Olympic Committee, Kirsty Coventry has created history.

At the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe was chosen president, making history as the first African and the first woman to occupy the esteemed role.

Twenty years after winning her first Olympic gold in Greece, Coventry celebrated another victory in the Mediterranean nation on March 20th when she was elected IOC president.

With the potential for a four-year extension, the 41-year-old Zimbabwean, a former swimmer who won gold in the women’s 200-meter backstroke in Athens in 2004 and held the championship in Beijing in 2008, will now serve an eight-year term. Coventry, a four-time Olympic silver medallist and bronze medallist, succeeds 71-year-old German Thomas Bach, who has been designated honorary president and resigns after a 12-year term.

“This is a unique occasion. When I was nine years old, I never imagined that I would be able to come up here and support this amazing movement of ours,” Coventry remarked.

In addition to being a great honor, this serves as a reminder to each and every one of you that I will lead this organization with pride and with the ideals at its center. I hope that you will all feel very confident in the choice you made today. I am incredibly grateful to you.

IOC veteran Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. of Spain and World Athletics president Sebastian Coe of Britain were predicted to provide fierce competition for Coventry, who was generally considered Bach’s preferred successor. But in an unexpected turn of events, the election was determined in a single round of voting at a posh beach resort in the southwest Peloponnese region of Greece.

With zero abstentions, she received 49 votes, which is sufficient for a majority out of 97 potential votes. Coe received eight votes, and Samaranch Jr. received twenty-eight. Prince Feisal Al-Hussein of Jordan received two votes, Swedish-born Johan Eliasch received two, and Frenchman David Lappartient and Morinari Watanabe of Japan each received four.

The IOC has put its trust in Coventry’s leadership for the future, but she now faces formidable obstacles as she guides the organization into a new era.