The first female and first African president of the IOC, Kirsty Coventry, was inaugurated in the role Monday on the organization's 131st birthday with praise that the Olympic movement was “in the best of hands.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland–New International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry pledged on Monday to strengthen and extend the reach of the Games, as Zimbabwe's Olympic swimming champion

Coventry detailed her vision for an IOC presidency in her candidate manifesto published last December (soon after she gave birth to her second daughter, Lily). She wrote that she was guided by the collaborative Ubuntu philosophy: I am because we are.