The 54-year-old, who four years ago became the first female to be voted as World Athletics vice-president, polled 154 of the 194 eligible votes available, the highest of all eight candidates.

Restrepo will be joined as vice-president by Spain’s Raúl Chapado, India’s Adille Sumariwalla and Kenya’s Jackson Tuwei following the decision by Ukraine's Sergey Bubka not to stand for re-election having been part of the World Athletics Council since 2001.

Bubka, the 1988 Olympic pole vault champion and six-time world champion, had been appointed as the senior vice-president by Sebastian Coe after the Briton narrowly defeated him to be voted World Athletics President in 2015. 

But he decided not to stand for a further term following criticism of his failure to condemn Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and his business links with Russia, as insidethegames exclusively revealed yesterday.

The vice-presidents will have a fresh look after Norfolk Islands' Geoff Gardner and Saudi Arabia's Nawaf Bin Mohammed Al Saud both lost their positions after finishing fifth and eighth in the voting, respectively.

Canada's Abby Hoffman was sixth in the voting and Finland's Antti Pihlakoski seventh.

Delegates were permitted to select only one candidate from each continent, and required to choose at least one female official in their four votes.

As the candidate with the most votes, Restrepo is set to replace Bubka as senior vice-president.

She won 400 metres bronze for Colombia at the Barcelona 1992 Olympics, but has lived in Chile for more than 30 years and is nationalised in the country.

The role of senior vice-president is set to take on extra significance because they would be the most likely to follow Coe as head of World Athletics if he decides to stand for President of the IOC in 2025 and is elected to succeed Thomas Bach.

Royal Spanish Athletics Federation President Chapado was second in the poll with 119 votes, followed by Athletics Federation of India President Sumariwalla with 115 and Athletics Kenya President Tuwei with 104.

Gardner was the next in the polling with 96.

There were 194 valid votes cast for the vice-presidential positions, with one invalid vote and two countries not voting.

Hoffman and Pihlakoski were later re-elected as members of the Council, polling 145 and 131 from 192 valid votes, respectively.

Japan's two-time Olympic marathon medallist Yuko Arimori joins the Council with a vote-high 166 delegates choosing her, followed by Italy's Anna Riccardi with 165 and New Zealand's Annette Purvis with 156.

IOC Executive Board member Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco was re-elected with 151 votes, the same total tallied by Nan Wang, vice-president of the Chinese Athletics Association.

Beijing 2008 Olympic heptathlon champion Nataliya Dobrynska of Ukraine earned 144 votes for election onto the Council, with Sylvia Barlag of The Netherlands and Beatrice Ayikoru of Uganda re-elected with 142 and 141, respectively.

Commonwealth Games 200m champion Cydonie Mothersille of the Cayman Islands and Donna Raynor of Bermuda were also elected to the Council for the first time with 116 and 107 votes, respectively.

New Zealand's double Olympic shot put gold medallist and four-time world champion Dame Valerie Adams is already on the Council representing as vice-chair of the World Athletics Athletes' Commission.

That means 13 of the 26 Council members are now female.

Under Coe, World Athletics had aimed to equal balance of male and female Council Members by 2027, a target it has reached four years ahead of schedule.

"I’m grateful for the support of my colleagues and delighted to see that more of the commitments we made during the governance reform process in 2016 have come to fruition with the election of World Athletics’ first gender equal Council four years ahead of schedule," said Coe. 

"But the job is not done yet and we need to keep pushing for gender parity throughout our representative bodies. 

"The strength of our sport is in its diversity and that should be reflected in our governance at all levels."

World Athletics has until its 2027 Congress to meet the remaining requirement from its 2016 reform plan of having two vice presidents of each gender.

The United States' former triple jump world record holder Willie Banks was re-elected to the World Athletics Council, along with Pihlakoski, one of only two men to poll enough votes with 132 countries backing him. 

European Athletics vice-president Jean Gracia of France polled 92 votes, but was one of 10 candidates who missed out.