COSTA NAVARINO, Greece — Kirsty Coventry was elected president of the International Olympic Committee on Thursday and became the first woman and first African to get perhaps the biggest job in world sports.

“It is a signal that we are truly global,” the Zimbabwe sports minister and two-time Olympic swimming gold medalist said.

Hers was a stunning first-round win in the seven-candidate contest after voting by 97 IOC members.

She gets an eight-year mandate into 2033 aged just 41 — youthful by the historical standards of the IOC.

It was the most open and hard-to-call IOC presidential election in decades with Coventry expected to lead the first round short of an absolute majority. Though several rounds of votes were widely predicted, she got the exact majority of 49 needed.

Coventry’s win also was a victory for outgoing IOC president Thomas Bach, who has long been seen as promoting her as his successor. He did not use his right to vote.

“I will make all of you very, very proud and hopefully extremely confident in the decision you have taken,” Coventry said in her acceptance speech. “Now we have got some work together.”

Walking to the podium, she was congratulated and kissed on both cheeks by Juan Antonio Samaranch, her expected closest rival who got 28 votes.

Also in the race were four presidents of sports governing bodies: Track and field’s Sebastian Coe, skiing’s Johan Eliasch, cycling’s David Lappartient, and gymnastics’ Morinari Watanabe. Also contending was Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan.

Coventry will formally replace her mentor Bach on June 23 — officially Olympic Day — as the 10th IOC president in its 131-year history. Bach reached the maximum 12 years in office.

Key challenges for the 41-year-old Auburn University graduate will be steering the Olympic movement through political and sporting issues toward the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, including engaging in diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Coventry’s IOC will also need to find a host for the 2036 Summer Games which could go to India or the Middle East.

The strongest candidates in a five-month campaign with tightly controlled rules drafted by the Bach-led IOC seemed to be Coventry — who gave birth to her second child — IOC vice president Samaranch and Coe.

Coventry’s manifesto offered mostly continuity from Bach with little new detail, while her rivals had specifics to benefit Olympic athletes, which she was as recently as 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.

Coventry won back-to-back titles in 200-meters backstroke at the 2004 Athens Olympics and Beijing four years later. She joined the IOC in 2013, almost one year after a disputed athlete election at the London Olympics. Her place among the four athletes elected was eventually awarded after Court of Arbitration for Sport rulings against two opponents.