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After a memorable year and a brilliant World Champs in Budapest, the World Athletics president outlines his vision for his final period at the global governing body and warns it could be a rocky ride
Seb Coe was always at his most dangerous on the last lap. Few of his rivals on the track could match his famed finishing kick. Sometimes this would even involve multiple injections of pace in the closing stages.
Now aged 67 he is entering the home straight as president of World Athletics. Following eight years in the global governing body’s hot-seat, he is into his final four-year term and gearing up for another monumental sprint to the line.
So what are his priorities?
“I want people to look back on 2024 and 2025 in the same way they look back on 2016, which was a root and branch review of the sport,” he says. “And that we did things that made a significant difference… and that the sport looked different and will never look the same again.
“This doesn’t mean jettisoning 150 years of history and heritage but it is saying that too much of what we do is through rote and because ‘we’ve always done it’ – and it isn’t good enough. We have to do things differently and make sure the things we want to preserve and cherish are done in a way that they can be preserved and cherished in front of new audiences.”
At the end of a memorable year which featured what Coe believes was the greatest World Championships in history in the shape of Budapest 2023, he adds: “I want to see more young people watching our sport and greater spectator activation. I want to improve the product on television, as I don’t think it’s that good in many places.
“Broadcast still do the same thing over and over – and haven’t changed very much over the past 20-30 years – and I’m not sure the quality of discussion about the coverage of our sport is as high there as it is in, say, football, cricket or rugby. Those are the kind of things I want to try to influence.”
Seb Coe and Josh Kerr (Getty)
He continues: “When it comes to things I have a direct control over, it’s the innovation itself inside the sport and there are many things that we are looking at with everything currently on the table.”
But he warns: “It won’t make everybody happy.”
He adds with a smile: “If I wanted to win a popularity contest, I would never have done what I did in 2015. I know that I’m an acquired taste in some quarters.”
Coe has an innovation team at World Athletics which is charged at looking at new ideas where “nothing is off the table”.
He says: “I’m absolutely focused on what the product (of athletics) looks like. How we can use it to grow the sport. How we can bring more people, more technical officials, more coaches and volunteers into it and, critically, how we can future-proof the sport. The Netflix documentary next year will help do that – and there are other things being worked upon.”
Coe says his first four years as president were focused on “stopping the ship sinking” and his second four years were spent on areas such as improving the competition calendar and getting on top of the transfers of allegiance issues, most of which he concedes should have been done earlier.
But as we head into Olympic year, he says: “We’ve got the foundations in place and the red carpet laid out in front of us to do what might be the toughest part of the journey.
“Everyone is in favour of progress as long as it doesn’t involve change!”
World Champs in Budapest (Getty)
He is armed with facts from multiple surveys and studies, too. “We need to make sure the changes we make are data-based. The work we did during Budapest gives us a useful indicator of what’s working and what people are not too interested in.
“That doesn’t mean it gives us carte blanche to do away with some things. It just tells us where the challenges lie.”
Coe uses the example of horizontal jumps. “We’ve found 31% of jumps ended in failure with no-jumps. In an hour’s coverage you have an awful lot of sandpit raking and cones on runways.
“In an hour’s field events coverage there is too much downtime and watching people getting changed and ready to do something. So I think there are things we can do to improve the quality of the event, ranging from people in the stadium to those watching on television.”
Coe was speaking to specialist athletics writers during an end-of-year video interview and other topics that came up were as follows…
Ivana Vuleta (Getty)
World Athletics AOY controversy
On the global governing body’s last-minute decision to split its annual awards into track, field and out-of-stadia awards, Coe says: “I don’t want to be dismissive about it and I’m sure it has its magnesium flare at the moment but it’s not the No.1 priority for me right now. I also don’t accept that nobody knew about it.”
He adds: “The athlete reps were informed because many were in Monaco on that weekend.”
However, award winners such as Noah Lyles, who expressed surprise and bemusement at the time, were not told as it would have spoiled the surprise of winning.
Coe added that, similar to any other area at World Athletics, the whole process would be reviewed.
Noah Lyles (Getty)
World Cross 2026 in January
The World Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee in two years’ time being held on January 10 has raised eyebrows and Coe admits “it is not ideal”.
The decision, he adds, was due to “local conditions and temperatures” among other things. On the championships’ place in the calendar more generally, he adds: “We have looked at rescheduling the world cross-country to be held before Christmas.”
Coe says World Athletics has been in discussion with European Athletics to “create a critical mass of cross country ahead of clearing the way (in the new year) for the indoor season.”
Declining print media coverage
“When I travelled to meetings 30-40 years ago, every newspaper sent specialist athletics writers,” Coe recalls. “So the issues now are probably due to the budgets that newspapers have got available. It’s not just sport that is affected either.”
He adds: “What can World Athletics do? We have outreach programmes through news agencies to encourage young writers to focus on track and field. Also, I’ve spoken to around 100 specialist athletics writers today across 30 countries so it’s tougher than it’s been but you’re not defunct yet!”
Seb Coe in 1984 (Mark Shearman)
Great anniversaries in 2024
May 6 sees the 70th anniversary of the first sub-four-minute mile with the summer marking the 40th anniversary of the Los Angeles Olympics, where Coe won 1500m gold and 800m silver.
“They’re huge moments,” says Coe. “The sub-four minute mile was Herculean and will be recognised. It was a huge breakthrough. More people have individually climbed Everest than have run a four-minute mile so it’s still physiologically quite a serious achievement. Not that many people have done it.”
On the 1984 Olympics, he adds: “LA was special for me because I’d gone from the command control of the first Communist games through to the comedic opulence of LA resplendent with 84 grand pianos and 84 Liberace lookalikes and a rocket man who could have burned a hole in the finishing straight. It was a very special games and I remember it with great affection and it’s one where Daley Thompson, who roomed with me, and I had probably the best month of our lives.”
Coe will hope 2024 produces the same kind of moments and memories for future generations.
» World champs road titles take a step closer to being part of World Marathon Majors largely due to global warming, says Coe – click here
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