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 in June. 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 announced she won the election. “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
— IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) March 20, 2025
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 Zimbabwe’s capital of Harare. She began swimming at age 2 and by age 9 was so successful that she appeared on TV.
Kim Brackin, then a co-head coach at Auburn, began recruiting Coventry when she was 16. She met the young swimmer, and her family, in Zimbabwe in May 2000.
“Super kind, but very shy,” Brackin recalled, speaking by phone minutes after watching Coventry’s election from her living room in St. Petersburg, Florida. “Her family was so welcoming and behind her. They just wanted to help her be in the place where she could find the most success and be the best taken care of. … When you see a family like that, it speaks volumes.”
Coventry made her Olympic debut in September 2000 a day after turning 17. The next year, she matriculated at Auburn, where she became an NCAA champion.
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.
“She has always known what she is capable of,” said Brackin, who coached Coventry at the Olympics in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016. “Even in ’08, it’s crazy to think she was pretty devastated after three silvers (in the 200m and 400m individual medleys and 100m backstroke). I mean, she went there to win four golds, and she knew she was capable of winning a gold medal and resetting the world record in the 200m back (her last event), but there’s still bumps to get there. But I never, ever doubted — even though she would express some doubt — I never doubted that she really knew in her own mind and was going to pour out of every fiber of her body that she was capable. And I think that’s why I just felt like this was her thing to win (the IOC presidency) because she just knows. It’s her organization now to shape. She’s so capable of it.”
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.
Brackin said Coventry told her in 2016 that she wanted to be IOC president one day.
“‘I want to help grow this organization and run it,’” Brackin recalled Coventry saying. “Here she is. Oh my gosh, I’m so proud of her.”
Coventry and Brackin have communicated regularly over the last several months. Coventry prepared her manifesto — “Unleashing the Transformative Power of Sport” — and went through the election process after having her second daughter, Lily, late last year.
“She’s been very calm,” Brackin said. “I think that she knows that she put in the work she needed to do, and she’s really grown over this. I’ve noticed it. But really, her husband, Ty, left a long message today, just how proud he is of her, regardless of what happens. He’s like, ‘She’s grown tremendously.’”
Now Coventry 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
— IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) March 20, 2025
2025 IOC President Election Vote Results
1. Kirsty Coventry (ZIM) — 49
2. Juan Antonio Samaranch (ESP) -- 28
3. Sebastian Coe (GBR) -- 8
4. David Lappartient (FRA) -- 4
4. Morinari Watanabe (JPN) -- 4
6. Prince Feisal Al Hussein (JOR) -- 2
6. Johan Eliasch (GBR) -- 2
