Sebastian Coe elected as IAAF president

Andreas Selliaas analyses Coe’s background and comments on his mounting challenges. In his victory speech he valued being elected president of the IAAF as the “second biggest and momentous decision” in his life.

“We have been pushing for his (Gayle’s) representation internationally, and Garth is a highly recognised technical officer, so it’s really good that he got on to the technical committee and I am really happy for that. The next president has been very clear that he has zero tolerance for drug cheats and that is our standard”.

IAAF is in a deep crisis.

“From the very bottom of my heart, I would like to thank the Member Federations, who voted for my candidacy as IAAF President as well as for my Vice-Presidency role”. But the one in front of him now looks more like the Himalayas than a hurdle.

Coe added that he would now be reacquainting himself with his wife after months of worldwide lobbying.

“Seb Coe and I started with the fight against doping in 1981 as athletes in the Olympic congress in Baden Baden where we were asking for lifelong bans”, said Bach, a former Olympic fencer. “It is my sport, it’s my passion, it’s the thing that I’ve always wanted to do”. There is a need to set up a fully independent anti-doping tribunal and Coe must facilitate this.

Athletics may be awash with doping allegations, but the outgoing head of the sport’s governing body, Lamine Diack, insists it is “99 per cent” clean.

But Coe’s contribution to the writing of the book of sports politics goes far deeper than that.

Benjamin also stressed not to underestimate the new president. CSM worked out the bid book for Baku in their wish for the Summer Olympics and have helped Baku secure the heavily criticised European Games, arranged for the first time this summer. In 2012 he was appointed global Advisor for Nike. Meanwhile, the IAAF confirmed that 28 athletes were found to have committed doping violations after their samples from the 2005 and 2007 world championships were retested with current technology. After being elected president of the IAAF he refuses to comment on how much money he receives from Nike as an worldwide Advisor.

At the moment, the best athletes in the world rarely run against each other outside of major championships. You focus on the bad news, that is the 200 positive tests.

Coe won 115 votes from the 207 voting member federations that make up IAAF, with Ukraine’s Bubka receiving 92.

During his election campaign, Sebastian Coe has spent quite a lot of his fortune (estimated at £25 million) on campaign money and has travelled 700,000 km to reach out to the electorate.

“The performance must be an improvement on the existing IAAF World Record”. Today the audit books of the IAAF show no sign of athletics being the biggest sport in the Olympic Summer Games.

On Thursday, Usain Bolt’s news conference was dominated by questions about doping.

The IAAF election, held in the lead-up to the world championships, has been overshadowed by intense criticism of the world body following media reports that it has failed to act on evidence of widespread blood doping. “I followed Coe’s career rise up from getting those issues”.