Lunchtime shoppers lined the streets as a dozen-vehicle convoy wormed its way through the city with the Olympic swimming champion waving from the back of a pick-up truck.

Coventry returned home from the 2008 Beijing Olympics on Wednesday with four medals – one gold and three silver. She also set world records in the 100m and her signature 200m backstroke.

She was the only athlete in the 13-member Team Zimbabwe to win a medal, although Ngonidzashe Makusha (long jump) came close with a fourth place finish, and Brian Dzingai reached the final of the men’s 100m sprint, finishing fifth.

Later on Wednesday, Coventry and the rest of the Olympic team were to attend a banquet hosted by President Robert Mugabe at State House.

On the eve of the Team’s arrival home, Mugabe congratulated Coventry “most heartily on that heroic performance” in a televised address to parliament.

Zimbabwean sports fans have been calling for a significant honour for Coventry whose medal haul placed Zimbabwe a joint third behind Kenya (14 medals) and Ethiopia (5 medals) on the African medals table from the Olympics.

Coventry touched down at the Harare International Airport to be met by dozens of cheering fans, sports administrators and government officials.

She wore the Team Zimbabwe colours, her four medals dangling from her chest.

Several vehicles bearing a badge of the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee formed a multiple vehicle convoy heading for central Harare.

SHE'S BLINGING: Coventry looks at her medals during a victory parade in Harare

A black BMW M6 bearing the number plate KIRSTY, and adorned with a ‘Proudly Zimbabwean’ sticker on the side was part of the convoy. Journalists presumed it may be passed to her as a present at the evening banquet.

Hundreds of people lined up the route, cheering from the street side. Coventry and other members of Team Zimbabwe waved back all the time, occasionally taking pictures from their cameras along the way.

A young fan managed to get himself on the same open-back SUV as Coventry and Dzingai, carrying a banner with the message: “Kirsty Ndichakupa Munda” (Kirsty I Will Give You Land).

With Zimbabwe’s economy in turmoil and a decade-long political crisis far from resolution, Coventry’s Olympics heroics have given the country something to cheer.