LONDON — Conservative lawmakers have chosen Home Secretary Theresa May and Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom to fight a runoff contest for leadership of Britain’s governing party. The winner will become the country’s second female prime minister.

May received 199 votes in a ballot of Conservative members of Parliament Thursday. Leadsom received 84. Justice Secretary Michael Gove got 46 votes and was eliminated from the race.

Some 150,000 Conservative Party members will now vote in the leadership contest, with the result announced Sept. 9.

The winner will replace Prime Minister David Cameron, who announced his resignation after Britain voted last month to leave the European Union.

Britain’s first female prime minister was Margaret Thatcher, a Conservative who governed from 1979 to 1990.

Meanwhile, world athletics chief Sebastian Coe says Britain’s vote to leave the European Union means that British sports will lose a lot of EU funding for sports infrastructure. Coe says he will be pressing the next British government to make sure that money for sports still flows from national coffers.

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Coe says he “will be at the front of the queue making sure that where that finance is available, it is being aimed at sport, which is as important to me as almost any other activity.”

The former Olympic runner was a Conservative member of parliament in the 1990s and a chief of staff of the party. He backed the “remain” side in the vote on EU membership.

Coe says when the EU divorce is final, EU sports funding will disappear in Britain.

This story will be updated.


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