Sebastian Coe defeated by Kirsty Coventry in his bid to become IOC president

Sebastian Coe’s bid to become president of the International Olympic Committee has ended in defeat, with Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe winning the vote.

Coe, 68, had said occupying the Olympic Movement’s highest office was a role he had been “training for for the best part of his life”, but a majority of IOC members instead gave their backing to Coventry in the first round of voting.

The 41-year-old becomes the first woman and first African in the post.

Coventry’s victory at the IOC Session in Greece was announced by current president Thomas Bach, who will officially hand over the reins on June 24.

Victory for Coe would have been the peak of a stellar career in sports administration which followed great success in track and field, where he won Olympic gold in the 1500m at the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games.

Coe led the bid and organising teams for the London 2012 Games and was the chairman of the British Olympic Association from 2012 to 2016. Since 2015 he has been president of World Athletics.

More recently, Coe chaired the Old Trafford Regeneration Task Force, which has recommended Manchester United build a new 100,000-seater stadium as part of a wider project to regenerate the surrounding area.

He had also vowed to protect the female sport category.

“If you do not protect it, or you are in any way ambivalent about it for whatever reason, then it will not end well for women’s sport,” Coe said when he launched his campaign last year.

“I come from a sport where that is absolutely sacrosanct.”

However, a majority of 49 out of the 97 IOC members eligible to vote selected Coventry to lead the organisation. She will now serve an eight-year term as president.

Coe only received eight votes, to finish third behind Coventry and Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr (28 votes).

Coventry said in her acceptance speech: “This 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.

“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’ve taken today.”

Coventry, seen in some quarters as the preferred candidate of outgoing president Bach, won gold in the 200 metres backstroke at the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games, out of a total of seven medals she won overall.

She was elected to the IOC Athletes’ Commission and served from 2013 to 2021. She was then voted in as an individual IOC member in 2021.

Coventry was on the IOC executive board which approved the eligibility criteria for the women’s boxing tournament at last summer’s Games in Paris, which drew criticism and controversy and made Coe “uncomfortable”.

Two fighters – Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting – won gold medals despite the International Boxing Association alleging they had been disqualified from the 2023 World Championships for failing to meet gender eligibility criteria.

Khelif is taking legal action over reports she has male XY chromosomes and insists she was born a woman and lives as a woman, while the IOC has condemned abuse directed at Khelif and Lin during and since the Games.

“As a female athlete, you want to be able to walk onto a level playing field,” she said.

“Always, it’s our job as the IOC to ensure that we are going to create that environment, and that we are going to not just create a level playing field, but we’re going to create an environment that allows for every athlete to feel safe.”