The American-based swimmer won four medals in the Chinese capital, a gold and three silver, to leave them 38th in the overall medals table and the third leading African country.

 

ZImbabwe have won eight medals since they made their Olympic debut at Moscow in 1980, seven of them by Coventry, who was awarded a $100,000 (£54,866) bonus by the country's controversial President Robert Mugabe.

 

Coventry had also won three medals in Athens four years ago.

 

The other medal in the country's history was the gold medal won by the country's women's hockey team in Moscow when they were called up as late replacements after several teams withdrew from the tournament in protest at the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

 

Robert Mutsauki, the president of the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee, said they want to begin preparations for London 2012 immediately.

 

He said: "We are happy that Team Zimbabwe did well at the Games recently held in China and we will certainly carry out a review of the whole event.

 

"But I must hasten to say that the team did general well and we achieved our objective of doing better than the Athens Game.

 

"We won four medals as opposed to three the last time and not only did we improve the tally but the quality of medals as well."

 

But Mutsauki also praised the performance of the country's track and field athletes.

 

He said: "While it was Coventry alone who once again won the medals, Brian Dzingai did well to qualify for the finals of the 200 metres where he finished fourth.

 

"Ngoni Makusha was also brilliant and just missed a medal by a centimetre in the long jump while Mike Fokorani was the 11th best finisher in the marathon.

 

"So we witnessed a good improvement even from Elana Hill in rowing as this was her first time at the Olympics."