{"id":849841,"date":"2025-05-20T22:13:44","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T03:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/20\/extraordinary-moment-kirsty-coventry-becomes-first-woman-and-first-african-to-lead-ioc\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T22:13:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T03:13:44","slug":"extraordinary-moment-kirsty-coventry-becomes-first-woman-and-first-african-to-lead-ioc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/20\/extraordinary-moment-kirsty-coventry-becomes-first-woman-and-first-african-to-lead-ioc\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Extraordinary moment\u2019: Kirsty Coventry becomes first woman and first African to lead IOC"},"content":{"rendered":"<section data-qa=\"GenericArticle-Content\">\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\">Kirsty Coventry became the first woman and first African to be elected president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Thursday, saying it was an \u201cextraordinary moment\u201d.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\">The 41-year-old two-time Olympic swimming champion from Zimbabwe is also the youngest person ever to hold the most powerful position in sports governance.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\">\u201cIt is a really powerful signal we are truly global and evolved into an organisation open to diversity,\u201d said Coventry, who was only the second woman to run for the post.<\/p>\n<p>Coventry, the Zimbabwean sports minister, is a close ally of German <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/sport\/other-sport\/article\/3302781\/thomas-bachs-successor-needs-cool-head-guide-olympics-through-stormy-seas-experts?module=inline&#038;pgtype=article\" title data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\"><span data-qa=\"Component-Text\">Thomas Bach<\/span><\/a>, who steps down as <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/ioc-international-olympic-committee?module=inline&#038;pgtype=article\" title data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\"><span data-qa=\"Component-Text\">IOC<\/span><\/a> chief after 12 years.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\">\u201cThis 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,\u201d Coventry said.<\/p>\n<div data-qa=\"Component-renderMap-StyledDiv\">\n<figure data-qa=\"ArticleImage-ArticleImageContainer\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"British candidate for the presidency of the IOC Sebastian Coe speaks to the media in Costa Navarino, Greece on Thursday. Photo: AFP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/img.i-scmp.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto\/sites\/default\/files\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2025\/03\/21\/c3615b4b-deb0-4e8e-a6c7-58c27b6d6b32_c7220c76.jpg\" title=\"British candidate for the presidency of the IOC Sebastian Coe speaks to the media in Costa Navarino, Greece on Thursday. Photo: AFP\"><\/p><figcaption data-qa=\"ArticleImage-DescriptionContainer\">British candidate for the presidency of the IOC Sebastian Coe speaks to the media in Costa Navarino, Greece on Thursday. Photo: AFP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\">\u201cThis is not just a huge honour but it is a reminder 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, I hope, extremely confident in the decision you\u2019ve taken today.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p> Yuri Michaud <br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/sport\/article\/3303223\/extraordinary-moment-kirsty-coventry-becomes-first-woman-and-first-african-lead-ioc?utm_source=rss_feed\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kirsty Coventry became the first woman and first African to be elected president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Thursday, saying it was an \u201cextraordinary moment\u201d. The 41-year-old two-time Olympic swimming champion from Zimbabwe is also the youngest person ever to hold the most powerful position in sports governance. \u201cIt is a really powerful<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":849842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25307,673],"tags":[19249,5719],"class_list":{"0":"post-849841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-extraordinary","8":"category-first","9":"tag-extraordinary","10":"tag-first"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}