Who is Kirsty Coventry, the new IOC president?

Former Olympic swimming champion, Kirsty Coventry will succeed Thomas Bach as the new president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), marking an historic milestone as the first African and first female to lead the Olympic movement.

The Zimbabwean only needed one round of voting in Athens as she secured the 49 votes required to certify her victory with Spain’s Juan Antonio Samaranch and former athlete Sebastian Coe coming second and third respectively in a field of seven candidates.

Born in 1983 in Harare, Zimbabwe, Coventry is the most decorated African Olympian, having won multiple Olympic medals and broken several world records.

She claimed her first Olympic medals at the 2004 Athens Games, winning gold in the 200m backstroke, silver in the 100m backstroke, and bronze in the 200m individual medley.

She continued her winning streak at the Beijing Games in 2008, repeating her gold-medal triumph in the 200m backstroke and adding three silvers to her collection. This cemented her reputation as one of the most decorated swimmers in Olympic history and Zimbabwe’s most successful Olympian.

After retiring from the pool, she made the move into sports governance and became Zimbabwe’s Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation in 2019.

Bach backing

The Harare born is a pioneer for clean sport and gender equality, and the IOC will now be expected to prioritise greater transparency and integrate new sports to attract younger audiences, all while safeguarding the Olympic values.

Coventry was reportedly the preferred candidate of outgoing IOC president Thomas Bach and she will take up her role on June 24, just over three years before the Los Angeles Summer Games and less than eight months before the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Games.

After her win, the 41-year-old stated: “It’s a really powerful signal. 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 walking that road in the next eight years.”

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