IAAF President Sebastian Coe has had a well-publicized first year-and-a-half on the job with the unfolding doping scandal that has enveloped the sport and the suspension of the Russian track and field team. Coe took a few minutes at the Leaders Sport Business Summit in N.Y. to talk with SBD Global Managing Editor David Morgan about where the 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 a completely different approach to anti-doping, namely, in simple terms, just removing national interest out of results management, but having that made very much more independent, with sanctions delivered by an independent body within the integrity unit, not just anti-doping, but the ability to look at transfers of allegiance, results, age manipulation, all the things that can beset our sport with problems. On the specific issue of Russia, we’re making progress.
Q: What about winning back the trust of fans and sponsors?
Coe: We’re beginning to do that. We have a new partner, Asics, that’s come to the table. 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. ... In a way, it’s sort of a triangle of trust. It’s the issues of trust, but it’s driven by good leadership, and it’s driven by the importance in maintaining a relevance in our sport. Our sport has massive relevance because more people do our sport. Millions and millions of people over the course of the coming weekend in this country alone will be engaged in running. That’s a great asset to have, particularly when you’re putting yourself out there as a sport that’s not just about elite-level competition, but you’re a sport that can connect businesses and organizations to a massive database.
Q: What impact will the Olympic Channel have for your sport?
Coe: The Olympic Channel, again, we are in discussions with the IOC over and that will maintain. The question you ask, if I may say so, is essential, and that is, "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?" What is it that we can do to drive greater length to the season and make sure we’re not in that sort of feast-or-famine two-year cycle where people actually really genuinely look at us as an all-embracing, 12-month-of-the-year sport? Now we do have athletics, track and field, road and cross 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: Where have you made the most headway, so far?
Coe: Keeping the wheels on the cart. Somebody had to lead here. It’s not how I envisaged my first year-and-a-half, and, yes, it has been a roller coaster, but I’ve been in leadership roles before and know that, on occasion, it’s a lonely place to be. I’m very lucky to have a great team around me.
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 -- actually, I’ll say it, at the highest level. I was barely out of the top two or three even in a poor year in my sport for 14 seasons, so you sort of get used to that. And you know that nothing great in sport happens overnight, and that’s the same in administration. I don’t get fazed by that. 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: No, with all due respect, 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 40 minutes before an Olympic final, and there’s nothing I’ve ever done that relates to that experience.
