The New IOC Presdient – runblogrun

New IOC President

Seb Coe’s campaign to become the International Olympic Committee president in succession to Thomas Bach, ended in bitter disappointment.  The appointment was to be decided by the 97 voting members with seven candidates standing: France’s David Lappartient, Japan’s Morinari Watanabe, Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan, Spaniard Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr, Swede Johan Eliasch, Kirsty Coventry from Zimbabwe and Lord Sebastian Coe.

Kirsty Coventry, Zimbabwe’s sports minister and a former Olympic swimmer became the first female and first African president of the International Olympic Committee. It was expected that it would be a close contest, going through several rounds before a winner emerged.  In the event Coventry secured a winning 49 votes in the first round with Coe getting only 8. Favorite Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr, whose father had held the office, got 28 votes. At 41, Coventry will be the youngest president in the organisation’s 130-year history.

The new president said afterwards: “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”.

Coventry has won seven of Zimbabwe’s eight Olympic medals – including gold in the 200m backstroke at both the 2004 and 2008 Games. “The young girl who first started swimming in Zimbabwe all those years ago could never have dreamed of this moment,” said Coventry.

“I am particularly proud to be the first female IOC president, and also the first from Africa.

I hope that this vote will be an inspiration to many people. Glass ceilings have been shattered today, and I am fully aware of my responsibilities as a role model.”

I met Kirsty Coventry when we were both delegates at a Sport and Faith conference at the Vatican in 2016. She told me about her experience as an Olympic swimmer: “My first experience was just going; I qualified for my first Olympics in Sydney in 2000 and going there and being at the biggest meet in the world and in Australia where swimming is just such a huge culture, it was a great experience just being there. I wasn’t thinking about medals at that point.  It was  just being there, about going and watching and learning from the people that I admired the most. So just watching Susie O’Neil warm up and how she spoke…