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Kirsty Coventry wrote her name forever in the universal encyclopedias by becoming the first woman in history to chair the International Olympic Committee in its 131-year existence. The double Olympic champion - seven medals in five Games - overcame the other six candidates in the first vote. Among her rivals was Juan Antonio Samaranch, who aspired to be the second of the saga among the 10 presidents of the movement throughout its history. The elections were held at The Westin Hotel resort in Costa Navarino, on the Peloponnese peninsula (Greece).
Coventry, 41, is currently Zimbabwe's Minister of Sport and ed the IOC in 2013 as a former athlete, where she has served on various commissions, including the finance commission. She was the dark horse candidate of outgoing president Thomas Bach, whom she will succeed in June when he ends his 12-year term.
It was undoubtedly the strength of Thomas Bach, the outgoing president, that weighed heavily, as he has appointed more than 70 per cent of the current assembly and has increased the number of women in the forum to 47, almost 44 per cent of the representation. Coventry won a majority (49 votes) in the first ballot, so a second was not necessary. Samaranch came second with 28 votes and Sebastian Coe was a distant third with eight.
The victory of the African, the first representative of this continent to hold the most powerful position in sport, can be understood from the statistics. Until 1981, no woman was a member of the Olympic Assembly and only four women - Annika Sorenstam (golf), Petra Sörling (table tennis), Zena Wooldrige (squash) and Regula Meier (ski mountaineering) - are at the head of the 43 Olympic federations. The picture is even bleaker in Spain, with only one woman (Elisa Aguilar, basketball) among the 66 sports federations.
All the predictions of the international press went out the window immediately. They pointed to Samaranch,but as one of the candidates, UCI president David Lappartient, said, "he who enters as Pope usually leaves as Cardinal". The others who had put themselves forward were Sebastian Coe, Feisal Al Hussein, Johan Eliasch and Morinari Watanabe.
The final work of the Bach establishment worked. It was to proclaim to the world that the parity of athletes achieved at the Paris Olympic Games was not a pose, but a social conscience. They needed an immediate blow, to prevent from falling towards Samaranch in later rounds. Forty-nine, just the number needed to seal victory. Coe, with few friends in the assembly, was harshly punished: eight. The best predictions of his rivals did not exceed 14 for the Lord.
Coventry opens a new period, one that is needed for Olympism, whose image will now be strengthened in marketing at least by its concession. It needs to gain charisma. The IOC president sits at the table of the great personalities of world politics. And in these times wolves like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, he will have to put on a great armor to not show the slightest weakness in respecting universality and values.