News brief

First woman and African elected to lead Olympics committee. Kirsty Coventry was elected president of the International Olympic Committee on March 20 and became the first woman and first African to get perhaps the biggest job in world sports. The Zimbabwe sports minister and two-time Olympic swimming gold medalist won the seven-candidate contest after voting by 97 IOC members. She gets an eight-year mandate into 2033 at age 41 – youthful by the historical standards of the IOC. It was the most open and hard-to-call IOC presidential election in decades.