Kirsty Leigh Seward Coventry has officially taken over the office as the International Olympic Committee (IOC), succeeding Thomas Bach.
The 41 year old Coventry from Zimbabwean became the first women and an African to take to the helm of IOC as the president ahead of 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Olympics.
Coventry won her first Games in 2000, went ahead to win another gold in swimming and she has accrued domestic political experience, as she was Zimbabwe’s Minister for Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation from 2019 to this year.
In 2004, Coventry gave an insight into why she would later accept such a poisoned chalice and how whites in Zimbabwe have to perform a delicate balancing act.
Coventry had a largely urban upbringing. Her parents Rob and Linn owned a chemicals firm in a suburb of Harare, but the farming evictions.