• Former rower will succeed Hugh Robertson in new year
• Grainger is currently in second term as chair of UK Sport

One of Team GB’s greatest ever athletes, Dame Katherine Grainger, has become the first female chair of the British Olympic Association in its 119-year history.

Grainger, who is the only British woman to win medals in five separate Olympic Games, beat the BOA’s vice-chair, Annamarie Phelps, in a vote of the organisation’s 46 members on Thursday. She will take over from Hugh Robertson, who has helped lead the organisation since 2012, early in the new year.