IOC president election: Sebastian Coe’s bid fails as Kirsty Coventry becomes first woman and first African voted into role

Sebastian Coe’s bid to become president of the International Olympic Committee has ended in defeat, with Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe winning the vote.

Coe, 68, had said occupying the Olympic Movement’s highest office was a role he had been “training for for the best part of his life”, but a majority of IOC members instead gave their backing to Coventry in the first round of voting.

The 41-year-old becomes the first woman and first African in the post.

Coventry’s victory at the IOC Session in Greece was announced by current president Thomas Bach, who will officially hand over the reins on June 24.

Victory for Coe would have been the peak of a stellar career in sports administration which followed great success in track and field, where he won Olympic gold in the 1500m at the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games.

Coe led the bid and organising teams for the London 2012 Games and was the chairman of the British Olympic Association from 2012 to 2016. Since 2015 he has been president of World Athletics.

More recently, Coe chaired the Old Trafford Regeneration Task Force, which has recommended Manchester United build a new 100,000-seater stadium as part of a wider project to regenerate the surrounding area.

He sought to reform the IOC from within, stating earlier in his campaign that “too much power is in the hands of too few people”.

He had also vowed to protect the female sport category.

“If you do not protect it, or you are in any way ambivalent about it for whatever reason, then it will not end well for women’s sport,” Coe said when he launched his campaign last year. “I come from a sport where that is absolutely sacrosanct.”

‘An extraordinary moment’

However, a majority of 49 out of the 97 IOC members eligible to vote selected Coventry to lead the organisation. She will now serve an eight-year term as president.

Coe only received eight votes, to finish third behind Coventry and Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr (28 votes).

Coventry said in her acceptance speech: “This is an extraordinary moment. As a nine year old girl, I never thought that I would be standing up here one day getting to give back to this incredible movement of ours.

“This is not just a huge honour, but it is a reminder of my commitment to every single one of you that I will lead this organisation with so much pride, with the values at the core, and I will make all of you very, very proud and hopefully extremely confident in the decision that you’ve taken today.”

Coventry, seen in some quarters as the preferred candidate of outgoing president Bach, won gold in the 200 metres backstroke at the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games, out of a total of seven medals she won overall.

She was elected to the IOC Athletes’ Commission and served from 2013 to 2021. She was then voted in as an individual IOC member in 2021.

Coe congratulated Coventry on her victory in a statement issued by World Athletics.

“As president of the number one 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,” he said.

British Olympic Association CEO, Andy Anson, said: “The British Olympic Association warmly congratulates Kirsty Coventry who has today become the first female and tenth President of the International Olympic Committee.

“We know her well and look forward to working together to grow the Olympic Movement’s global relevance and commercial success.”

How significant is Coventry’s victory?

Sky Sports News senior reporter Geraint Hughes:

“It’s huge news and the significance will probably only become clearer in the weeks, months and years to come.

“Coventry is the first female president of the IOC. In 131 years. There have previously only been nine presidents, all men.

“It is a highly male-dominated environment within the IOC, although that has been changing in recent years. But for the top job at the IOC, and arguably the most powerful job in sport to now be held by a woman, the visibility and the optics of this cannot be underestimated.

“Coventry’s manifesto, her mandate, is one of slow evolution rather than revolution. She was the preferred candidate of the current incumbent president, which may explain why she won certainly within the first round due to the influence of Thomas Bach.

“She is viewed as a very safe pair of hands, and the visibility of Coventry becoming the first female president of the IOC, a position of such huge power and visibility, cannot be underestimated.”

Is Coventry’s election a surprise?

Hughes: “Yes and no. No because Coventry was viewed as one of the three frontrunners of the seven candidates available, along with Coe of the UK and Spain’s Juan Antonio Samaranch.

“What was a surprise is that the voting was done and dusted within one round of voting in less than two minutes.

“To secure the president of the IOC, the voting had to be achieved with a majority, so 50 per cent plus one. Most onlookers thought it wouldn’t be done in the first round, maybe the second, third, even fourth round of voting.

“It was being seen as viewed prior to the vote, the closest IOC presidential election in history. It transpired to be anything but. So, not a surprise she won, but a surprise she secured the majority in the first round of voting.”

How close did Seb Coe get?

Hughes: “In the end, he was a long way off. He came third in the voting, but his eight votes paled into insignificance compared to Coventry’s 49.

“Even though it was felt Coe had a lot of second-preference voting, had the voting gone beyond the first round, with those numbers – 49 to Coventry, 28 to Samaranch – it does look unlikely Coe was ever going to be in with a shout of achieving the presidency of the IOC.”

What next for Coe?

Hughes: “He won’t disappear. He’s still one of sports administrators’ most highly visible personalities. He’s still president of World Athletics, which is Olympic’s largest sport.

“It’s an organisation which he will argue has led the way on how to deal with Russia with regards to state-sponsored doping and also on their invasion of Ukraine.

“Coe will also point to the fact that he’s led the way with an unambiguous position on elite transgender athletes competing in female sports at the protection of the female category. He’s been clear and unambiguous about that.

“So he will not suddenly go quietly into the night. He still has a huge role to play within World Athletics, but he is also one of sports’ most charismatic administrators. He will be around for some years to come.”

Is the IOC presidency the most powerful job in sport?

Hughes: “Yes it is! Every sporting federation on the planet is a member of the IOC – football, boxing, athletics, cricket, rugby, all of them. It is also a job that has to deal with geopolitics and politics and it has some influence within that sphere as well.

“It has the ear of prime ministers and presidents. Indeed, a pressing job for Kirstie Coventry will be to speak with the US president Donald Trump. The next summer games are being held in Los Angeles in 2028.

“There are many issues to discuss around those games – how involved Trump will want to be with his larger-than-life personality, and how the IOC will want to keep control of those games.

“There’s also a number of issues surrounding sport and Olympic values and ethics which perhaps Trump does not share, so there will be some challenging conversations ahead for Coventry.”