The Spaniard, who ran unopposed, remains the only female head of any Summer Olympic International Federation.

The result was announced on Twitter by the ITU.

Canada's Loreen Barnett, Mexico's Antonio Alvarez, Japan's Shin Otsuka and Sweden's Ria Damgren have all been elected vice-presidents for the next four year cycle. 

Casado succeeded Canada's founding President Les McDonald in 2008 to become only the second leader of the ITU, and two years later was made a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The 60-year-old was re-elected for a second ITU term in Auckland in 2012, seeing off the challenge of South Korea's Kyung-sun Yu with a comfortable 82-33 victory.

Her third success came in a meeting today attended by IOC President Thomas Bach.

This is guaranteed to be her final term, however, as a motion was passed to introduce a three-term limit in the interest of good governance. 

“Thank you from the heart for nominating me as President of ITU,”  Casado said in her victory speech. 

“Thank you for believing in my vision, in my leadership, and where I want to take the sport. 

"It is a great honour to be given the responsibility of directing ITU another four years.

"We’ve done a great job as a team, and we have to keep moving in the same direction. 

"We will think about possible changes and, if needed or if we think changes can improve our sport, we will make those changes. 

"We will do whatever is necessary to keep our sport on the spotlight."

Bach praised the ITU and triathlon for supposedly leading the way in their responses to good governance and sustainability.

He also highlighted her "always positive approach to sport, all the initiatives to include Paratriathlon under the triathlon umbrella and also included in the Rio Paralympics, and her willingness to adopt the Agenda 2020".

Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic were all made ITU members during the meeting.