Kirsty Coventry smashed through the glass ceiling of the International Olympic Committee on Thursday to become the organization’s first female and first African president in his 130-year history.

The Zimbabwian swimming big, already a ruted figure in Olympic circles, came out victorious to replace Thomas Bach, and secured the top job of world sport and started a new era for the games.

“It’s a really powerful signal,” said a smiling coventry as the victory sank in. “It’s a signal that we are really global and that we have evolved into an organization that is really open to diversity and we will continue.”

Coventry only needed a round of voting to get the run to follow Bach and won an immediate overall majority in the secret vote with 49 of the available 97 votes.

She beat Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. to the second place where the Spanish won 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 honor, but it is a reminder of my commitment to every one of you that I will lead this organization with so much pride,” a brilliant coventry told her colleague IOC members at the luxury town of Greece’s southwestern Peloponnese, who hosted the IOC session.

“I will make you all very, very proud and hopefully extremely sure of the choice you have made today, thanks from the bottom of my heart,” she added.

Coventry said she will now bring all candidates together.

“I want to sit down with President Bach. We will have a few months for a takeover takeover. And what I want to focus on is bringing all candidates together. There were so many great ideas and exchanges over the past six months.

“Look at the IOC and our Olympic Movement and Family and decide how exactly we will move forward in the future. What is it we want to focus on in the first six months? I have some ideas but part of my campaign was listening to the IOC members and hearing what they have to say and hear how we want to move together.”

Show of Unity

Coventry’s landslide was a show of unity in the body, she said.

“It is extremely important that we have to be a unified front and we have to work together. We are not and we may not always agree, but we have to be able to get together to improve the movement.”

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

She was added to IOC’s Athletter Commission in 2012, and her choices for the top job signalize a new era for the IOC with expectations that she will bring a new perspective on urgent issues such as athlete rights, the gender debate and the game’s sustainability.

A master of sports development in Africa, Coventry has promised to expand Olympic participation and ensure games remain relevant to younger generations.

She also inherits the complex task of navigating connections with global sports federations and sponsors, while maintaining the IOC’s financial stability, which has been very dependent on her broadcasts and sponsorship agreements on several trillion dollars.

When she takes the helm, the global sports community will watch out to see how Coventry is shaping the future of the world’s largest multi -port organization.

While her elections were widely popular with the IOC family, there were some quarters over her relations with the Zimbabwish government, for whom she serves as Minister of Youth, Sport, Art and Recreation, a position that has raised her eyebrows considering Zimbabwe’s problematic history of political freedoms.

The country has faced sanctions from the United States and the European Union. Coventry’s long -standing recognition in Zimbabwe, where she received a price of $ 100,000 of former President Robert Mugabe for her success at Beijing -ol in 2008, adds further complexity to the situation. Mugabe was in power for 37 years before being crashed into a military -supported cupping in 2017.

Although Coventry has tried to separate from political affairs, her ministerial role and ties with Zimbabwe’s leadership continue to be disputed questions as she enters the leadership of the world’s most powerful sports organization.

On Thursday, however, 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.