CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The next president of the International Olympic Committee is a former Zimbabwe swimmer who is Africa's most decorated Olympian and a minister in a government often accused of oppressing political opposition.
Kirsty Coventry, 41, was elected to one of the most powerful jobs in sports on Thursday, becoming the first woman and first African to lead the Olympic movement.
She will begin her eight-year term in charge of the IOC in June.
Coventry was the back-to-back Olympic champion in the 200 meters backstroke in 2004 and 2008. She retired from swimming after the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016 with seven Olympic medals, more than anyone else from Africa.
Coventry is also currently Zimbabwe's minister of youth, sports, arts and recreation, drawing some scrutiny of her affiliation with a government that has long faced accusations of cracking down on democratic freedoms and suppressing criticism in the southern African country.
Her country and the government she serves in has been targeted with sanctions by the United States and the European Union.
At the height of her swimming career, Coventry was praised and rewarded with a diplomatic passport and $100,000 by late Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, an autocratic leader who ruled his country for 37 years until he was removed in a military-backed coup in 2017.
Coventry became the ministry of sports a year after the coup in the new administration of current President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Mugabe's vice president who rights groups say has continued many of Mugabe's oppressive policies.
Coventry was just 34 when she was appointed a government minister in a move that was greeted with surprise because she was young and had little political experience, but also because she is white.
Coventry attended an all-girls convent school in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. She went to college at Auburn University in Alabama and became one of its star swimmers. She made her Olympic debut in Sydney in 2000 while still at high school. She won three medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics and four medals at the 2008 Beijing Games.
From 2018 to 2021 Coventry was the athlete representative on the IOC executive board under Thomas Bach, the man she was elected to succeed on Thursday. Coventry had the backing of Bach. She has been an IOC member since 2013.
Coventry's legacy as a sports leader in her home country has been questioned. Zimbabwe has been banned from hosting international soccer games by the African confederation since 2020 because it doesn't have a stadium that meets the standard required.
Zimbabwe was also temporarily suspended from international soccer by world body FIFA in 2022 because of government interference.
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Gerald Imray, The Associated Press
