Coe optimistic as IOC election nears

After a day of high-stakes presentations alongside his rivals for the sports world’s top chair, the World Athletics president expressed confidence about his chances of becoming the next leader of the Olympic movement.
Speaking at AFP’s headquarters in Paris, Sebastian Coe reflected on delivering his vision for the Olympic future in a brief speech to IOC members in Lausanne the previous day. Candidates were not permitted to take questions.
“You can’t do a great deal in 15 minutes, once you’ve sort of had a few words of pleasantries and got your other eye on a countdown clock,” a more relaxed Coe reflected to French media. “I hope I was able to convey a serious approach to the role, that this isn’t a one-off. You know, the presentation is important, but content is important.”
Coe is among several candidates advocating for a more engaged IOC membership. “I think it’s critical,” he said, adding that his leadership at World Athletics has already demonstrated his commitment to such an approach. “One of the things that I think I have achieved at World Athletics is I had a very top-down organisation,” he underlined.
“I’m not remotely comparing what I inherited at World Athletics with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), but the general proposition is that my style is very clear. If you’ve got really smart people around you and your ambition as a leader is to have people that are smarter than you around you, then use them. Don’t micromanage,” he stressed.
Coe’s decision to introduce prize money for athletics gold medalists, starting with the Paris Olympics, has stirred debate within the Olympic movement. He insists the move was “aligned to what we felt were the interests of the sport,” even though he did not consult other federations. One of his main competitors for the IOC presidency, Zimbabwean sports minister, Kirsty Coventry, has proposed offering financial support to athletes earlier in their careers.
“I did say to the ASOIF (Association of Summer Olympic International Federations), on reflection, I would have announced it and done it in a different way,” Coe admitted. However, Coe believes prize money is just one way to support Olympic athletes. “Actually yesterday I didn’t talk about prize money. I did, however, talk about my thinking around freeing up and giving the athletes their data, their assets, content and access that allow them to be more generative in income outside of the field of play.
“And that’s an important thing. I think there’s a lot more that we can do.” Some within the Olympic community suspect Coe has faced obstacles in his campaign. Under current IOC rules, at 68 years old, he would only be eligible to serve a two-year term. His rival Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. is 65. Coe, however, remains unfased.
“Look, I was deemed eligible to stand and even fighting my way through a cold, I still managed to get a 40-minute run in yesterday morning and I work out every day for an hour.” He also dismissed concerns about age as outdated. “It is, he argued, “quite analogue” to be talking about people’s ages. In any other business or any other organisation, there are some pretty clear rules and codes about talking about people’s age in interviews and stuff. Anyway, it is what it is.”
With a career spanning Olympic gold, politics, and global sports leadership, Coe believes he is well-prepared for the role, which he describes as “a passion, not a job.” The decision now rests with the more than 100 IOC members, who will cast their votes on 20 March in Greece. -insidethegames