So it’s victory for Kirsty Coventry in the IOC elections. Who says cards with a rigged deck isn’t an Olympic sport? | Marina Hyde

Kirsty Coventry is the first woman and the first African to win the role with 49 votes.

The World Athletics president, Seb Coe , finished third with only eight votes, a full 20 behind the second -placed Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr.

The outgoing president Thomas Bach was voted in as the still-powerful honorary president on the same day as Coventry 's victory.

The IOC and Fifa need autocracies, with the massive financial outlay that any modern sporting mega event requires really only making sense politically for corrupt and autocratic regimes that wish to make a certain statement to the wider world.

Still, Coe ’s decisive loss yet again confirms of the IOC that you can’t win as an outsider in an insider's race.