Lord Coe takes reins as IAAF’s president

Athletics associations around the world like Team Athletics SVG will be hoping that newly elected president of the IAAF Lord Sebastian Coe keeps some of his promises.{{more}}

When Coe visited St Vincent and the Grenadines in March this year, he promised that if elected, he would lend support to the various federations.

“The number one objective is to enable federations to deliver effectively and the IAAF to really support their programmes, because they know better than we do at the centre… That means freeing up resources from the centre,” Coe projected.

Coe, too, promised more engagement with young people.

He said even with the best programmes in the world and the best intentioned programmes, they have struggled to create excitement amongst young people.

He, therefore, promised to take the administrative grant back to $20,000 and have a yearly review.

He, however, noted that the grants would be to those in need, such as St Vincent and the Grenadines.

“I think we run the risk of putting development money into areas where we are not going to make a massive difference and into areas where there is a real heritage and history for track and field… I want to create a development structure that is more aware of what is actually taking place on the ground and I don’t think you can do that with a one size fits all,” Coe said at time.

‘I want also to create more competitions… If we are not about competitions and coaching, we are not probably about nothing much else…. We need to have more heads to heads, we need to have athletes racing against each other more often,” he envisaged.

But Coe, as the new president, has big tasks on his hand, including how to deal with the fall-out from a series of doping allegations, which has fractured the sport’s image and trust.

A former Olympic 1500 metre champion, the 58-year-old Briton beat rival Sergey Bubka, a former Olympic pole vault champion, by 115 votes to 92, to the top spot, when the elections were held in Russia last Wednesday.

Coe is a former chair of London 2012. He replaces 82-year-old Senegalese Lamine Diack, who has been in charge for 16 years.(RT)