Kirsty Coventry Elected 10th IOC President

Kirsty Coventry has been elected the 10th President of the International Olympic Committee.

The 41-year-old Zimbabwean was chosen in a secret ballot of seven candidates at the 144th IOC Session being held in Costa Navarino, Greece, on Thursday 20 March 2025, for an eight-year term of office.

She surprisingly beat favourites for the job Sebastian Coe (GBR) and Juan Antonia Samaranch Jr (ESP).  

Agenda

Coventry will have a full agenda as she will have to lead the Olympic Games towards 2028 L.A. and make them more sustainable and climate friendly. Media express fear that president Donald Trump might steer the Games away from the ideals expressed in the Olympic manifesto.

The IOC also runs a zero drug policy and the committee has to deal with the announced "Enchanced Games", a project unveiled in 2023 by Australian law expert and businessman Aron D'Souza and partially financed by Donald Trump Jr. They want to organize a sporting competition where participants are allowed to use banned substances to achieve unprecedented performances. 

In addition, it remains to be seen if the IOC will maintain the ban against Russia for invading and attacking Ukraine on 28 February 2022. De Standaard reported that the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) has begun talks with the IOC to lift the ban.  Russian and Belarusian athletes can only participate in the Games under a neutral flag and cannot openly support the war. 

Succeeding Thomas Bach

President-elect Coventry replaces outgoing President Thomas Bach, who was first elected in 2013 and re-elected in 2021. She received 49 votes in the first round, exactly the number required for a majority from the 97 votes cast.

She will be the first woman and the first African to serve as IOC President. "I'm very proud to call myself a Zimbabwean and to have grown up there, for my mum to have been born there, my grandmother," she told Olympics.com afterwards. "And, [my message] to Africa: this is our time."

President-elect Coventry will assume office after the handover from President Bach on Olympic Day, 23 June. President Bach, who remains in the role until then, will also resign as an IOC Member after the transfer of power and will then assume the role of Honorary President.

"Extraordinary Moment"

"This is an extraordinary moment. As a nine-year-old girl I never thought I'd be standing up here one day, getting to give back to this incredible Movement of ours," President-elect Coventry told the Session in her acceptance speech.

"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 have taken today. Now we've got some work together. This race was an incredible race and it made us better, made us a stronger Movement."

The President-elect will oversee the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 as her first Olympic Games, with under 11 months to go to the Opening Ceremony.

President Bach said of his successor's election: "Congratulations to Kirsty Coventry on her election as the 10th IOC President. I warmly welcome the decision of the IOC Members and look forward to strong cooperation, particularly during the transition period. There is no doubt that the future for our Olympic Movement is bright and that the values we stand for will continue to guide us through the years to come."

IOC and FEI

After the election of Coventry, the FEI issued a press release extending its congratulations to the newly elected president.

FEI President Ingmar De Vos has been re-elected for a second term as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).  The Session also voted to change the status of Ingmar De Vos’ membership from being related to his function as the FEI President to membership related to his function as the President of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF). De Vos was unanimously elected as the ASOIF President for a term of four years starting on 1 January 2025.