Olympics-Coventry smashes glass ceiling to become first woman and first African to lead IOC

By Ossian Shine, Karolos Grohmann and Julien Pretot

PYLOS, Greece (Reuters) -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," a smiling Coventry said as the victory sank 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 a distant third with only eight votes. 

The remaining handful of votes went to Frenchman David Lappartient, Jordan’s Prince Feisal, Swedish-born Johan Eliasch, and Japan’s Morinari Watanabe.

"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 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," she added.

Coventry said she now wants to bring all the candidates together. 

"I'm going to sit down with President Bach. We're going to have a few months for a handover takeover. And what I want to focus on is bringing all the candidates together. There were so many good ideas and exchanges over the last six months.

"Look at the IOC and our Olympic movement and family and decide how exactly we're going to move forward in the future. What is it that we want to focus on in the first six months? I have some ideas, but a part of my campaign was listening to the IOC members and hearing what they have to say and hearing how we want to move together."

SHOW OF UNITY

Coventry's first-round landslide was a show of unity in the body, she said. 

"It's extremely important we have to be a united front and we have to work together. We don't and we might not always agree, but we have to be able to come together for the betterment of the movement."

A seven-times Olympic medallist, Coventry won 200m backstroke gold at the 2004 Athens Games and again in Beijing four years later.

She was added to 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 IOC’s 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 Coventry shapes the future of the world’s biggest multi-sport organisation.

While her election was broadly popular among the IOC family, there was disquiet in some quarters over her links with the Zimbabwean government, for whom she serves as Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts, and Recreation, a position that has raised eyebrows given Zimbabwe's problematic history with political freedoms.

The country has faced sanctions from the United States and the European Union. Coventry's longstanding recognition in Zimbabwe, where she was given a $100,000 award by the former President Robert Mugabe for her success at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, adds further complexity to the situation. Mugabe was in power for 37 years before being overthrown in a military-backed coup in 2017.

Although Coventry has attempted to separate herself from political affairs, her ministerial role and ties with Zimbabwe's leadership continue to be contentious issues as she steps into the leadership of the world's most powerful sports organisation.

On Thursday, though, she was all smiles.

Champion in Athens 2004, victorious again in Pylos -- her golden touch in Greece shows no signs of fading.

"Greece seems to be my lucky charm," she smiled.

(Editing by Toby Davis and Ed Osmond)