Zimbabwe's Kirsty Coventry took over the presidency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from Thomas Bach on Monday during a handover ceremony at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The 41-year-old former Olympic swimming champion made history by becoming the first woman and the first African to lead the 131-year-old global sports body. Her presidential term is eight years, with the possibility of seeking a four-year extension.
During her first speech as IOC President, Coventry praised the Olympic Movement as "a platform to inspire, a platform to change lives, and a platform to bring hope."
"I can't believe that in 1992 when I had the dream of going to the Olympic Games and winning a gold medal for Zimbabwe, that I'd be standing here with all of you, getting to make those dreams come true for more young people around the world," she said.
Coventry secured the presidency in a decisive first-round vote during the 144th IOC Session on March 20, receiving 49 votes out of 97 ballots cast to defeat six other candidates.
Kirsty Coventry takes over presidency of International Olympic Committee
More than 1,000 coal mines in China have adopted intelligent systems, as their application expands from pilot projects to large-scale deployment, the China National Coal Association said recently.
Statistics show that by the end of 2025, a total of 1,066 coal mines nationwide have introduced smart systems, with such technologies now supporting more than 65 percent of the country's coal production capacity. The number of autonomous mining trucks in operation surpassed 4,000 units, roughly doubling on an annual basis.
The rapid adoption of smart mining is driven by robust domestic capabilities in intelligent equipment and technology. In Beijing, a newly deployed underground Internet of Things (IoT) precision positioning and management system links workers, positioning cards and operating zones, while also enabling health monitoring. Its core technologies and components are fully domestically developed and have been applied in coal mines and coal preparation plants. "This underground positioning system we've developed has a positioning deviation of less than 20 centimeters when a person or device is stationary. Even when a person or device is moving at high speeds, the margin of error remains minimal. A single device can cover a radius of 800 meters," said Wu Fengdong, general manager of China Coal Beijing Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the state-owned China National Coal Group Corporation.
Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021–2025), cumulative investment in smart mining has exceeded 107.1 billion yuan (about 15.6 billion U.S. dollars), with intelligent technologies now widely applied, accelerating the shift from traditional mining to modern, technology-driven extraction.
Over 60 pct of China's coal production capacity uses smart technology by end of 2025
