June 11 (Reuters) - Germany’s Heike Groesswangwas elected on Thursday as the first female president of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation at the governing body's congress in Austria, succeeding Italy’s Ivo Ferriani after a 16-year tenure.
The 56-year-old, who joined as executive director in 2010 and became secretary general two years later, is the IBSF's sixth president and will serve a four-year term to 2030 following her appointment with 27 votes out of a possible 45.
Other candidates were Latvia’s Martins Dambergs, an IBSF vice president for legal affairs, Spain’s Ander Mirambell, the country’s first Olympic skeleton athlete, and Jamaica’s Nelson Christian Stokes, a four-time bobsleigh Olympian.
Groesswang has also served on the International Olympic Committee’s Evaluation Commission for the 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games and was secretary general of the Winter Olympic Federations (WOF) from 2020 to 2023.
(Reporting by Paras J. Haji in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
