World Athletics has congratulated Kirsty Coventry on her election as the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Kirsty Coventry was elected as the 10th IOC President at 144th IOC Session in Costa Navarino, Greece on Thursday 20 March, 2025.
The IOC President-elect, who will assume office after a handover on 23 June, was elected for an eight-year term of office.
“On behalf of World Athletics, we wish to congratulate Kirsty on her election as future President of the International Olympic Committee,” said World Athletics President Sebastian Coe.
“As President of the No.1 Olympic sport, we look forward to working closely with Kirsty to ensure that sport remains the priority of the IOC, and athletes the driving force behind the new president’s agenda.”
President-elect Coventry is set to succeed Thomas Bach, who initially took office in 2013 and was re-elected in 2021.
Coventry was chosen over fellow presidential candidates HRH Prince Feisal Al Hussein, David Lappartient, Johan Eliasch, Juan Antonio Samaranch, Lord Sebastian Coe and Morinari Watanabe.
She will make history as both the first woman and the first African to hold the position of IOC President. The 41-year-old Zimbabwean secured 49 votes in the first voting round, which was precisely the majority needed from the 97 total votes.
“I’m very proud to call myself a Zimbabwean and to have grown up there, for my mum to have been born there, my grandmother,” she told Olympics.com afterwards. “And, [my message] to Africa: this is our time.”
“This is an extraordinary moment. As a nine-year-old girl I never thought I’d be standing up here one day, getting to give back to this incredible Movement of ours,” President-elect Coventry told the IOC Session in her acceptance speech.
Life of dedicated service to sport
Kirsty Coventry is currently an IOC Member and the Minister of Sport, Art & Recreation in Zimbabwe. She has been the country’s Minister of Sport since 2018. Additionally, she served as a Vice President of the International Surfing Federation from 2017 to 2024.
The former swimmer was first elected as an IOC Member as a member of the IOC Athletes’ Commission in 2013 and served in that role until 2021, when she was elected as an individual member.
A Harare native, President-elect Coventry competed at five different Olympic Games.
Between her debut at Sydney 2000 and competing for the final time at Rio 2016, she won seven Olympic medals (two gold, four silver, one bronze), taking gold in the 200m backstroke at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.
No other African athlete has won more Olympic medals.
She also won three long-course World Championship gold medals and four short-course titles during her career, in addition to a Commonwealth Games gold and 14 African Games gold medals.
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