Kirsty Coventry elected IOC president and is first woman, first African to lead global Olympic body

Coventry was asked at a news conference about going to the White House.

“I have been dealing with let’s say difficult,” taking a pause, “men in high positions since I was 20 years old. What I have learned is that communication will be key,” she said.

It was the most open and hard-to-call IOC presidential election in decades with Coventry expected to lead the first round short of an absolute majority. Though several rounds of votes were widely predicted, she got the exact majority of 49 needed.

Coventry’s win also was a victory for outgoing IOC president Thomas Bach, who has long been seen as promoting her as his successor. He did not use his right to vote.

“I will make all of you very, very proud and hopefully extremely confident in the decision you have taken,” Coventry said in her acceptance speech. “Now we have got some work together.”

Walking to the podium, she was congratulated and kissed on both cheeks by Juan Antonio Samaranch, her expected closest rival who got 28 votes.

“For her to start her presidency with those numbers, it is a sign of optimism to all of us,” Samaranch said. “We will all be behind her.”

Also in the race were four presidents of sports governing bodies: Track and field's Sebastian Coe, skiing's Johan Eliasch, cycling’s David Lappartient, and gymnastics' Morinari Watanabe. Also contending was Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan.

Coventry will formally replace her mentor Bach at a June 23 handover — officially Olympic Day — as the 10th IOC president in its 131-year history. The 71-year-old Bach reached the maximum 12 years in office.

Key challenges for the Auburn University graduate, who is youthful by the historical standards of the IOC, will be steering the Olympic movement through political and sporting issues toward 2028 in LA.

Coventry’s IOC will also need to find a host for the 2036 Summer Games which could go to India or the Middle East. A key IOC member, who voted Thursday, is Nita Ambani from the wealthiest family in Asia.

The strongest candidates in a five-month campaign with tightly controlled rules drafted by the Bach-led IOC seemed to be Coventry — who gave birth to her second child — IOC vice president Samaranch and Coe.

Coventry's manifesto offered mostly continuity from Bach with little new detail, while her rivals had specifics to benefit Olympic athletes, which she was as recently as 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.

Coe's World Athletics broke an Olympic taboo by paying $50,000 to track and field gold medalists in Paris last year. Samaranch promised to relax strict IOC commercial rules and give athletes control of footage of their Olympic performances.

Samaranch tried to follow his father, also Juan Antonio Samaranch, who was the IOC’s seventh president from 1980 to 2001.

Coe aimed to add to a remarkable career of Olympic triumphs: A two-time Olympic gold medalist in the 1,500 meters, he led a bidding team for the 2012 London Olympics, then worked for the next seven years to head the organizing team of those widely praised Games. He got just eight votes.

“I’m really pleased that it is an athlete that has emerged at the head of the organization,” Coe said. “I think that’s really important. Clearly, it’s a disappointing result, but that’s what happens when you go into an election."

It has been a stellar week for Bach, who greeted Coventry and shared warm smiles after her acceptance speech.

Bach was feted on Wednesday in an emotional start to the IOC annual meeting, getting lavish praise and the title of honorary president for life. He repeated his wish to offer advice to the next president.

Asked after Coventry won if he had intervened to campaign for her, Bach suggested in an election “don’t blame the voters, don’t blame the procedure.”

His hands-on executive-style presidency will deliver over a financially secure IOC, on track to earn more than $8 billion in revenue through the 2028 LA Olympics, and with a slate of future hosts through 2034: in Italy, the United States, France, Australia and finally the U.S. again, when the Winter Games return to Salt Lake City.

A signature Bach policy also has been gender parity, with equal quotas of men and women athletes at the 2024 Paris Olympics and giving a better balance of female members of the IOC and the executive board he chairs, which now has seven women among its 15 members, including Coventry.

Her win on Thursday will only add to Bach's legacy for promoting women.

Coventry won back-to-back titles in 200-meters backstroke at the 2004 Athens Olympics and Beijing four years later. She joined the IOC in 2013, almost one year after a disputed athlete election at the London Olympics. Her place among the four athletes elected was eventually awarded after Court of Arbitration for Sport rulings against two opponents.

The voters in the exclusive invited club of IOC members include royal family members, former lawmakers and diplomats, business leaders, sports officials and Olympic athletes. Even an Oscar-winning actress, Michelle Yeoh.

Members voted without hearing further presentations from the candidates in an election that swung on a discreet network of friendships and alliances largely forged out of sight.

One of Coventry’s voters Thursday, Anita DeFrantz, was the only previous female candidate for the presidency in 2001. DeFrantz traveled from the United States to cast her historic vote despite serious health issues.

"I was really proud that I could make her proud,” Coventry said, tearing up, calling DeFrantz an inspiration.

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AP Olympics at https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games