Confederation of African Football (CAF) president Patrice Motsepe has congratulated newly elected president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Kirsty Coventry.
Coventry, the current Minister of Youth, Art, Sport and Recreation in Zimbabwe, has made history by becoming the first African and the first woman to be elected president of the IOC.
“On behalf of the CAF Member Associations who represent 54 African countries, we would like to express our heartfelt congratulations to Ms. Kirsty Coventry on her election as President of the IOC,” said Coventry.
“Her election as President of the IOC fills us with enormous pride and is also a recognition of her outstanding achievements and embodiment of the philosophy of Olympism. We wish her everything of the very best,” added Motsepe.
Coventry, an former Olympic gold winner in swimming, needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Bach, winning an immediate overall majority in the secret ballot with 49 of the available 97 votes.
She beat Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. into second place, the Spaniard winning 28 votes. Britain’s Sebastian Coe, considered one of the front runners in the days leading up to the vote, came a distant third with only eight votes.
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