BEIJING - On the eve of the World Championships, the U.S. can not only claim to have the strongest track and field team on the planet, but it now touts one of the strongest presences in the global governance of the sport.

USA Track & Field candidates had a historically-dominant performance during Wednesday’s IAAF elections in Beijing with all five American candidates standing for election winning seats during committee voting and three of them leading the vote counts in their respective elections.

The most significant of those elections was that of USATF President Stephanie Hightower to the IAAF’s 27-member ruling council. Hightower, controversially nominated by USATF’s Board of Directors to replace former IAAF Senior Vice President Bob Hersh against the wishes of the membership (392-70 in favor of Hersh), received 163 votes, the most out of the 10 candidates for the six seats reserved for women on the IAAF board.

Hightower’s vote count trumped even the 160 received by Morocco’s Nawal el-Moutawakel, who in 1984 won Olympic gold in the 400m hurdles, becoming the first female Muslim born on the continent of Africa to become an Olympic champion, and has been an IAAF council member since 1995, and an IOC member since 1998.

To draw an analogy, that resounding vote tally on the international stage for someone who at home has drawn a vocal dissident, would be the equivalent of Hillary Clinton rising above the ever-present chorus of doubters to win the presidential election in a landslide.

“I am humbled and thrilled to have been selected to serve on the IAAF Council,” Hightower said in a statement.

USATF’s emerging strength within the international political scene was further evident in other elections, where four more Americans were elected to key posts.

Anne Phillips was elected chair of the federation’s women’s committee, Maryanne Daniel was elected as one of the two female members of the race-walking committee, Bill Roe was elected to the cross-country committee, and David Katz was re-elected to the IAAF technical committee. Phillips and Daniel, like Hightower, were the top vote-getters in their categories.

As noted Olympic expert Alan Abrahamson points out, the election results stand as “an emphatic rebuttal to domestic naysayers who had been hugely critical of the nominees put forth last December in Los Angeles by the USATF board.”

USATF is now well positioned as the IAAF ushers in a new era of governance. Earlier in the session, Great Britain’s Seb Coe was elected as the sixth president of the IAAF, succeeding Senegal’s outgoing president Lamine Diack who had held office for 16 years.

“Putting these candidates forward was a strategic decision by our board to be a leader rather than a follower in the IAAF’s new era,” USATF board chair Steve Miller said in a statement.

“None of these outcomes was guaranteed. Our election success was the result of a lot of hard work by our candidates, our staff and by our closest colleagues in the IAAF congress. Today’s elections are simply the start of what will be many months and years of hard work at the IAAF level.”

That work, presumably, begins with staging a successful IAAF World Indoor Championships in Portland in March and then turning attention to the 2021 IAAF World Outdoor Championships, which were awarded to Eugene by Diack.

“I congratulate Lord Coe on his election as IAAF president, and I am excited to continue to work with him on the important projects that our organization began with president Diack,” TrackTown USA president Vin Lananna said in a statement.

He added, “Together with our friends at the IAAF and USA Track & Field, I am confident that we will create a lasting legacy for the sport.”