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Seb Coe Discusses Challenges Of Running Track & Field's Governing Body

IAAF President Sebastian Coe has had a well-publicized first year-and-a-half at the helm of track & field's global governing body, with the unfolding doping scandal that has enveloped the sport and the suspension of the Russian team from the '16 Rio Games. Coe took a few minutes at Leaders' Sport Business Summit in N.Y. to talk with THE DAILY about where anti-doping reforms stand, how he is working to win back fans and commercial partners and how the Olympic Channel can move the sport out of its “feast-or-famine” perception.

Q: Where do we stand on anti-doping reforms?
Coe: We’re very much more resilient than we were at this time last year. We had an integrity unit that will be up and running in the next few months. That will provide us [with] a completely different approach. 

Q: What about winning back the trust of fans and sponsors?
Coe: We’re beginning to do that. We have a new partner, Asics. We had to start with a root-and-branch reform of the sport, so the constitutional changes were really important, providing the council, the commissions ... clear roles and responsibilities. [We added] the vetting panel, I don’t think any sport has ever had that before.

Q: What impact will the Olympic Channel have for your sport?
Coe: It is essential toward the question of, "What do we have to do in our sport to make sure that we just don’t work in two-year cycles between world championships and an Olympic Games?" We have [events] going on 12 months a year. But if we’re hard-nosed about it, your interest is only peaked as a journalist, as a chronicler of our sport, from start of May, when we kick into Diamond League, through to September when we finish with Diamond League, after a world championship, or after an Olympic Games. Also, there are spikes around the big city marathons, but that, in and of itself, is not enough, I think, for us to maintain that global presence that we need and other sports have. 

Q: Do you ever think, "What have I gotten myself in for?"
Coe: No, I’m genuinely not like that. If I had been of that nature, I probably wouldn’t have survived as long as I did in one of the most competitive sports at international level. ... I don’t get depressed by the worst and I don’t get excited by the best. I’m sort of classically, I guess, fairly British about that.

Q: How does leading the IAAF compare to all your Olympic experience?
Coe: This is a big moment in my life and I’m determined to do it as well as can, because I’m passionate about the sport. But, frankly, when you’ve sat in the call-up room 40 minutes before a race with eight other people wondering who’s got the national lottery in their pocket, you learn a lot about yourself, and there’s nothing I’ve ever done that relates to that experience.

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