New IOC President Kirsty Coventry // Photo: olympics.com
There were 7 candidates competing for the right to become the 10th IOC President, and 109 IOC members representing regional divisions of the organization could vote. To win it was necessary to gain 50% + 1 vote of delegates. The IOC President is elected for 8 years. Among the contenders were prominent sports and political figures, businessmen, as well as Jordanian Prince Faisal Al-Hussein from the Hashemite dynasty.
The most controversial candidate
During the pre-election period, most attention was focused on the president of the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations, also called World Athletics), the famous British track and field athlete Sebastian Coe. He, like Kirsty Coventry, was favorably distinguished among all the candidates by his Olympic experience. At the Olympics in Moscow (USSR) and Los Angeles (USA) in 1980 and 1984, respectively, Coe twice became Olympic champion in the 1,500-meter race and wrote his name in the history of sport. He set 12 world records at four different running distances and is a member of the IAAF Hall of Fame.
At the end of his sporting career Sebastian Coe became a member of the House of Commons of the British Parliament, since 2000 he has been a life peer. He chaired the committee for the organization of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, which were hosted by Great Britain. In 2007, he was elected vice-president of the IAAF, and since 2015 he has been the head of the organization responsible for world athletics.
Sebastian Coe gained fame as one of the most prominent representatives of the anti-doping movement. According to him, “doping undermines the credibility and integrity of the Olympic Games”, he has repeatedly declared his determination to eradicate doping from Olympic sport. In his campaign program, he stated that he intends to more actively engage commercial partners to more aggressively fund anti-doping programs around the world.
Coe is also paying a lot of attention to women’s sport, which, according to his statements, “is in a critical situation and needs more support”. At the end of the IOC presidential election, he announced that a mandatory gender test will be introduced in all international women’s athletics competitions. According to the IAAF head, this procedure will avoid situations like those with boxers Iman Khalif (Algeria) and Lin Yueting (Taiwan). Both athletes were admitted to last year’s Olympic Games in France, despite the conclusions of a number of international organizations about their gender mismatch (male chromosomes were detected in the DNA of the athletes). By the way, they won Olympic gold medals in the women’s boxing competition.
Despite all this, the support for Coe’s candidacy turned out to be insignificant, and the head of the IAAF failed. Prior to the election, there was even talk on the sidelines of the organization about “a high level of hatred for Coe from many prominent IOC members”. Coe was called “the most famous and controversial candidate,” and the contradiction of opinions did not play in his favor.
Olympic dynasty candidate
Another favorite was considered a member of the IOC since 2001, the son of the 8th IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. He combines his work in the organization with business activities and membership in various sports structures. For example, he is vice-president of the International Federation of Modern Pentathlon.
Samaranch Jr. built his election program around the ideas of creating an international sports investment fund, launching an Olympic donor program, calling for the revision of the rights to the TV broadcasting of the Olympic Games and modernizing the TOP program, which consists of the leading sponsors of the main Games of the quadrennium.
Being a member of the Samarancha Olympic dynasty and a wealth of entrepreneurial experience allowed Juan Antonio to attract more than a quarter of the IOC delegates’ votes, but not enough to win.
“Zimbabwe’s Goldfish.”
Two-time Olympic swimming champion Kirsty Coventry has become the youngest candidate, she is 41 years old. Among the 10 presidents of the organization, she is the second youngest – the IOC’s 2nd president and founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin, was 33 when he took office.
Kirsty Coventry was born in Harare, Zimbabwe to descendants of English colonists. She has competed in five Olympic Games (from 2000 to 2016). Her most impactful Games were Athens (2004) and Beijing (2008), where she won two gold medals in the 200-meter backstroke. In total, Coventry has won 7 Olympic medals of various distances, 7 times became world champion and set 5 world records in swimming at various distances. She is known in her homeland as the “Goldfish of Zimbabwe”.
She heads the IOC athletes’ commission and has been Zimbabwe’s Minister of Youth, Sports, Arts and Recreation since 2018. Due to her election as IOC president, she will step down from her other posts before taking office.
Coventry is considered a protégé of current IOC president Thomas Bach and was not among the main favorites before election day. Moreover, even the most optimistic experts were confident that the new president would be elected after more than two rounds. And for many sports officials it was a revelation that Coventry had been elected at the first time of asking.
Her candidacy was in many ways a compromise. The election of Coventry, a native of an African country, will contribute to a more active involvement of the “black continent” in the world Olympic movement. The status of the IOC’s first female president correlates with the organization’s strategy to establish gender balance at all levels. Her moderate views on such important issues as anti-doping, exclusion of countries from the Olympic Games, inclusiveness and gender equality have also become quite a significant argument in favor of her candidacy.
Thomas Bach will remain the current head of the organization for a few more months. Kirsty Coventry will take up her duties as IOC President on June 24, 2025.
|
IOC Presidents (1894-2025) |
||
|
№ |
President (country represented) |
Years in office |
|
1 |
Demetrious Vikelas Greece |
1894-1896 |
|
2 |
Pierre de Coubertin France |
1894-1916, 1919-1925 |
|
3 |
Godefroy de Blonay Switzerland |
1916-1919 |
|
3 |
Henri de Bayeux-Latour Belgium |
1925-1942 |
|
4 |
Siegfried Edström Sweden |
1942-1946 |
|
5 |
Avery Brandege USA |
1952-1972 |
|
6 |
Michael Morris Ireland |
1972-1980 |
|
7 |
Juan Antonio Samaranch Spain |
1980-2001 |
|
8 |
Jacques Rogge Belgium |
2001-2013 |
|
9 |
Thomas Bach Germany |
2013-2025 |
|
10 |
Kirsty Coventry Zimbabwe |
с 2025 |
