Can Seb Coe Save Athletics?

CAN SEB COE SAVE ATHLETICS? SPT K870B/01 BRD000000

-NEWS REPORT:

-Russian athletes have been accused of widespread cheating.

..drug-test samples deliberately destroyed

and coaches who were out of control.

Well, the IAAF has been rocked by a corruption scandal

implicating Lamine Diack.

Athletics is under attack.

Allegations of corruption,

greed and drugs have left the sport at an all-time low.

Today, athletics managed to plumb new depths.

Horrible, awful news at the moment. And it is hard.

It's really depressing and really sad to read.

I feel devastated to think, you know,

there's medals that I could have been awarded in my career.

..the damning conclusion of a report today.

It said the IAAF must have known about the scale of doping.

Of course there was a cover-up.

If you can't acknowledge it, you're never going to get past it.

Were there any suspicions from you that this was going on?

You and your council should have seen some of this coming.

-Does that make your position untenable?

-No.

I think what is clear is that we needed to know more.

We didn't know more.

This is a pivotal moment, a crossroads.

Can trust be restored?

Do you trust the IAAF to protect your reputation?

I trust myself. I don't know if I trust anyone else.

How will the man known by many as a great Olympian,

by more as Mr London 2012,

lead the revival - the toughest challenge of his career?

This role, as president of the IAAF, if you don't succeed,

it will be the thing that defines you.

Can Seb Coe save athletics?

I sat in almost this very seat commentating on Mo Farah,

as he broke my British 1,500-metre record.

It was a great night, everything that we love about athletics.

COMMENTATING: 'Absolutely unbelievable.'

Full stadium, great atmosphere, athletes at the top of their game.

At the very same time, the man who held the record before me,

Sebastian Coe, was embarking on his campaign

to become president of the IAAF.

I don't think any of us knew

what was going to happen in the ensuing months.

The sport has been ripped apart

and I've come here to Monaco to ask Seb how did we get in this mess

and what's he going to do to get us out of it.

'I've been given unprecedented access to spend some time with my

'former rival on the track - one of the busiest men in world sport.

'Since being elected IAAF president last August, Seb has found himself

'under the microscope, like never before.'

Why did you take on this job?

Because I love athletics and I'm a runner.

And, you know,

I joined an athletics club when I was 11 and, in my 60th year,

I had the opportunity to shape the sport, in the role as its president.

Did you have any other options? 2012 went so well.

Was there any thought that, maybe,

"There's something else I could go and do?"

There were a few other things

that, sort of, came my way and I talked to people about,

and some of them were really interesting,

and, yes, some of them were exciting.

But none of them had the core appeal of something I've been

doing for 50-odd years

and the opportunity, not for ever, but just to help shape

something that I really do love and admire and owe everything to.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Sebastian Coe, back at his best,

is the Olympic champion again. Cram gets the silver.

I've obviously known Seb an awful long time,

and I think I understood how he worked as an athlete,

but I've never really seen him in operation away from the track.

And I've also never been inside the IAAF offices,

so I'm doubly interested to see what goes on behind those doors.

So, this is the end of the building I've sort of plonked myself on.

-Right. How often are you here?

-Er, oh, a lot.

Erm, a good half my time.

-Do you?

-So I'm a commuter.

It's pretty busy at the moment,

because, as you know, we've got our council.

We've got three or four days of really intensive council meetings.

-Executive board this afternoon.

-Uh-huh.

-And this is my...

-CHUCKLES

-..my abode!

-Your abode, yeah.

-Yeah.

And you yourself have sat on boards and councils and things,

but, like, the president of the IAAF, it's a job, isn't it?

Actually, it's an honorary post.

We're all honorary members of the council.

That, in itself, is a complication.

That's why I'm looking at the role of the president,

the role of the executive board, what the

council really should be doing, who it's responsible to.

These are all the things.

Hey! My brother!

During the previous regime... I don't think most people realise

the depth of the issues, but what was your view?

I probably thought that this was far more to do with people that

just weren't making the right decisions,

weren't really putting their foot on the throttle

and being brave with, you know, the changes that needed to be made.

Nobody was sitting there thinking that, you know,

at the heart of the problem lay things that, you know,

were way, way beyond the moral boundaries.

Were you aware, at any stage, at any level,

of some of the issues that have now come to light?

No. I mean, the sport - you know, any sport -

is awash with rumours all the time.

You know, I've often been asked this question about Russian doping.

Well, you know, for 30 or 40 years, of course, we've lived

in a world of rumour around doping in Russia, in the United States.

You are I are sort of old enough to remember the Eastern Bloc.

And actually, those questions were asked on occasion at the council.

You know, the walls were just too high.

And we do need a council, we do need people like me

in roles as president, where you can be challenged

and, frankly, called to account.

Why weren't they challenged, do you think? Was it the process?

Were they not able to? Did council not do its job properly?

No, I don't think it's any one thing.

I think it is that, actually, if you look at our ability to

get into those issues, it wasn't there for the council.

And also, Steve, remember, at a time when the rumours were swirling,

the documentaries were appearing, you know,

we did have an ethics-board review into all that.

We then subsequently had two big pieces of work going on that

culminated in the independent commission report from Wada.

There is also a police investigation going on.

So, I guess the question that many of us

have asked ourselves, that were in the council at the time - was

there a way of inserting ourselves into that independent process

that was going on all around us?

I will say this, the last couple of council meetings that I've chaired,

there was a level of interrogation and a level of interest

and question and debate that I have never witnessed in a council,

and I've been there since 2003.

So, we're moving in the right direction.

But there's a lot more things to put in place.

The issue, I think, for those of us who are at athletic meetings

and sit in the bars afterwards - the athletes and the managers

-and agents and the media people - we don't see those debates.

-No.

And we've never seen them.

And all we've ever seen is the result, if you like,

of a badly run organisation, particularly the last few years.

So how do you ensure that people have faith in that process, still?

You've just articulated my biggest challenge.

And that is...

I can - and will - make the changes, but it's not like a slot machine.

I can make those changes,

I can put the, you know, whatever it is in place,

but the tray underneath

isn't going to suddenly start throwing out trust.

With former president Lamine Diack under investigation by French

authorities for alleged corruption,

regaining that trust seems to be top of the agenda for Seb,

and it's a message echoed by other prominent council members.

What happened in the past, it's not what he did.

I mean, I think that is what the athletes did

and what our leaders did before.

I mean, I think this is now a time to say that,

"Hey, Seb, we're giving you a clean slate.

"You should not concentrate so much on the office," and I think we are

busy with that process, to get a CEO that can run the office,

so that Seb can go out and look out and work with the people,

with the member federations that have elected him

and make sure that he can answer all the questions there,

because I think we cannot get a better leader at this stage in

time to take our sport out of this critical situation that we're in.

This is about culture change.

That's what this is about.

And he's talked about this

from the time he started

running for the seat.

And so having a leader who understands

the need for culture change and then actually now putting

that into action I think is a great first start for the IAAF.

He was really always a tough competitor, and...know he is

a tough leader and should really use the best of himself to go out

there and help us to restore the credibility in athletics.

'The ongoing battle with drugs is a key area for the IAAF, and Seb

'and his council voted 22 to 1 in favour of banning Russia

'from international competition back in November,

'after alleged involvement in state-sponsored doping.

'That and other governance issues have been on the table in Monaco.'

Well, after two days of meetings,

it's now time for Seb to face the international press,

and I think it's fair to say there's a certain amount

of anticipation in the room as to what exactly he's going to say.

Our review by anti-doping teams has identified five countries

who the council have agreed are in critical care at different degrees.

They are Ethiopia and Morocco,

both of which need to implement as a matter of urgency a robust

and adequate national testing programme

both in and out of competition.

Kenya, Ukraine and Belarus

have been put on an IAAF monitoring list for 2016 to

ensure their national anti-doping programmes are significantly

strengthened and their journey to compliance

completed by the end of this year.

The council unanimously agreed that the Russian

authorities need to undertake further significant work to

satisfy the reinstatement conditions, so RusAth should

not be reinstated to membership of the IAAF at this stage.

Obviously, systemic doping is one of the biggest issues that you

and the sport face.

Is it those tough decisions - the sanctions, the banning -

is that the only way to bring people to the table?

It's not the only way to bring people to the table,

but you do need to work...

You know, I am a great believer that it is far better to work with

people, recognising, you know, challenges,

recognising, you know, serious, serious situations

and trying to remedy them together than sort of saying,

"Right, the first instinct is to ban and kick out and isolate."

That's not the way the world works, it's not the way our families

work, it's not the way our organisations work.

As and when you get to real break points,

where there is just a resistance or just a real internal blockage,

then, yes, you have to be very, very tough, and I don't think...

This is non-negotiable now.

The perception perhaps in the past from many would be that the

IAAF, although on the face of it seemingly robust on drug

testing, but on the other side, trying to protect their sport,

perhaps shielding it from negative publicity.

How can you assure people that that is not the case?

I think the IAAF has been far,

far more proactive than it has been protective. You know?

And you know as well as I do that if you don't go fishing,

you don't catch fish,

and there are many sports that have taken that attitude.

The IAAF hasn't, actually.

A few people infiltrated a system and caused us...

..irreparable damage. There's no point in even pretending otherwise.

But actually, if you look at all the key advances that have been

made in sport around anti-doping,

they've more than often been driven by my sport -

the athlete biological passport, the out-of-competition random testing.

So actually, we've paid a very high price for what has been

revealed in the last few years,

but actually, our systems have shown to be pretty robust.

I think there is a twin challenge here, as well.

If we don't get the trust of the athletes back, if we haven't got

the families and we haven't got the parents that are feeling

comfortable that this is a sport that they're going to devote

time and energy and affection to, then we might as well all go home.

It's very clear that Seb is more than

aware of the size of the task, and he's very bullish about it.

But six months in,

the second time he's had the chance to sit with his full council,

he more than anyone is very aware that words are fine

but they have to be seen to be taking action now.

How close were you to thinking of drawing a line under this

and maybe saying to Russia,

"You're not going to be back in time for the Rio Olympics"?

My job is not actually to get as many athletes to the

Olympic Games as possible.

The job of the council is to make sure that those athletes

that are going to the Olympic Games are clean

and in systems that are based on integrity.

'It is needed to be reformed. I think it's needed to be clean.'

So no-one really is arguing about it.

And I think it's also in the interest of Russia, as well.

It's just the way how it will be reformed

and if these reforms will be fair

and transparent for everyone.

But definitely, I mean,

no-one is now arguing or trying to block these reforms.

I think the sport is going to have to go through a very hard

time for, you know, perhaps

three, four, five years of just,

you know, banning athletes

when they fail drugs tests,

being really aggressive,

which I don't think we've had in the past.

Sometimes we've played round the edges, had crackdowns and

there's been a spate of athletes tested positive and banned

and then everything kind of settles down and goes back to normal.

The most important thing now is to find the solution,

to set up everything for doping, to stop the bad attitude

and also to make a kind of biological

passport for the official, the doctors and the coaches,

because not only the athlete.

-So, how do you think that went?

-The whole day? Yeah, good.

-I mean more the press conference.

-I think that was good.

-I don't think there was anything there that I wasn't expecting.

-Yeah.

I think there's now much more of a focus on the future,

and actually, we've got through a mountain of reform.

I mean, in one day, Steve,

we have - I don't think I'm overstating this - I think

we've completely transformed the way

we will be operating in the next, you know, in the next year.

Inevitably, the focus today is going to be on Russia

and, you know, the five countries we've identified,

but the transformation today was extraordinary.

The point I would make is, yes, we've been firefighting,

but actually, we've been doing a mountain of other

-things in the background that will come to fruition.

-Good.

-I know you've got more interviews.

-We've got to go.

-We're really late.

-See you in a bit. See you later.

'It's been one thing introducing reforms within the IAAF,

'restructuring to a more modern business model, but while doing this

'Seb has also had to face a number of questions

'about his own integrity.'

Lord Coe is facing fresh allegations of a conflict of interest

over his role as an international advisor for Nike.

I have stepped down from my ambassadorial role with Nike,

which dates back 38 years.

The current noise level around this ambassadorial role is not good

for the IAAF and it is not good for Nike.

The first few months since you've been elected,

it's been a bumpy ride, it's been a difficult period.

And part of that has been because it's you.

There were scenarios which, erm, I don't know whether you think

could have been handled better.

You know, the Nike situation would be one, for example.

-Yeah.

-Were you ready for that level of scrutiny?

Yes, because I've lived in that world for any number of years.

I mean, anybody that lived through the...

you know, the 2003, 2005 bid journey, then the 2005,

2012 delivery of the Games journey, that was intense scrutiny,

and then as an athlete and then as a Member of Parliament

and as a chief of staff in a political party.

Now, that's the world I've lived in.

Yes, looking back, there are some things that, you know,

given the intensity of the interest, given the...

You know, you mention Nike.

You know, I'd gone basically ten years in a very high-profile

role chairing the London Games.

The Nike question was never actually asked in, technically,

a much higher-profile situation than...

Should it have been?

Well...

probably not,

because there was never any question that there would be any impropriety.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Sebastian Coe, back at his best,

is the Olympic champion again.

In 1984, when you crossed the line ahead of me at the Olympics,

the first thing you did was you turned to the tribune

and sort of aimed your gaze at where the British media were sitting

in a pretty defiant gesture towards them,

which I think summed up your frustration with the way

they'd dealt with you leading up to those Olympics.

-Do you see any parallels with that situation now?

-That was

a very specific moment in my life.

You know, I'd had a really difficult year and a half.

I was probably rebelling more about things that were being written about

my family at the time, because, you know, we sort of battle on,

we never really think much about, you know, behind the headlines,

we've got friends and family and loved ones that are sitting

there going, "That looks a bit unfair."

And I suppose that's probably been the toughest thing in the

last few months, watching friends and family react,

just sort of waking up to some of this stuff most mornings.

He has been, of course, attacked from every angle, nearly,

and this has made it very, very difficult for him.

'He has the guts to go out there and do things.'

I have told him, "Go out and be yourself

"and be that Sebastian Coe that I knew as a runner."

Everyone's saying, "We are behind this man, he's our leader

"and he'll lead us to better pastures."

I think that's absolutely right. Will he, as one man,

or this council, as 27 people,

be able to ensure that every person

always follows the rules? No,

because it's a big world and you can't follow everybody.

But they're on the right path,

and I absolutely believe people are 100% behind him.

'So it's clear Seb's colleagues and peers are behind him.

'But what about the athletes?'

Tonight is training night at the stadium for the local

athletics club, and I know one of the parents who lives here

pretty well!

Fancy seeing you here(!)

Hiya. You all right? Good to see you.

That's not a bad place, is it, for Isla to be training?

See, I had Jarrow and you had Bedford. She gets Monaco!

I know, but it's essentially the same thing, isn't it?

A track and sandpit and just having fun with athletics.

You've sat on the Athletes' Commission for a good few years now.

-Yeah.

-You've now become the vice-chair a couple of weeks ago.

What is your view of the last couple of years?

You must have been dismayed by everything,

like everybody else has been.

Yeah, I think dismayed,

angry and frustrated at what, kind of, was allowed to happen

to our sport and the damage that was done to it by the people who

were entrusted with it and in charge at the top

and who were allowed to get away with that for too long.

And I think that the IAAF has to take

accountability for the fact that the way it was set up was

too amateur, was not professional enough.

There's an issue of trust there, isn't there? Athletes have to think,

"If I've got something to say,

"I've got a federation who don't look as though they've been

"doing their job properly for the last period of time,

"or I could go, for instance,

"to a newspaper or a television programme, who might listen to me."

That's an issue, still, isn't it? That's something that Seb, I guess,

-has got to grapple with.

-Yeah, it's a big issue.

And I think that's why athletes have to feel that there's

a pathway that they can come through where they will be listened to

right at the very top,

and the people within the federation have to listen to that,

have to open their doors and say, "OK, come through,"

otherwise athletes will get frustrated and go to the media.

The most important thing is that we listen to the views of the athletes.

What sport will your daughter, perhaps, and these other kids here,

will there be a sport for them in ten years' time,

and what do you think it might look like? Or what should it look like?

Erm, it should look like a sport where these kids here know

and see that if they work hard and they've got some talent

and they put that work in, then they're going to find out how

good they can be on a level playing field.

In four years' time,

I want to be able to say that we look entirely different,

we go about our business in a completely different way

and we've gone a long way down the road to bringing trust back

to everybody that wants to be involved in us

and particularly young people who think,

"Hm, this looks like something I want to be involved in."

You've talked a lot about the future of the sport and your sponsors

and people coming to watch and young kids being inspired,

and they do that because of the stars.

But Usain Bolt, you know, Mo Farah, Jess Ennis in the UK,

they're not going to be there forever. What happens when they go?

We've got to find as many Usain Bolts as we can,

and it's not a conveyor belt.

We could be having this conversation in an American bar amongst

boxing writers in the Seventies and saying,

"What on earth's going to happen when Ali goes?"

Well, you know, after Ali there's Hagler, there's Hearns,

there's Sugar Ray Leonard. You know, they do come through.

But, no, Bolt is a genius.

What we have to do within the IAAF is to make sure that people

know as much and are as excited by the David Rudishas

and the Valerie Adams and people like that that come through

and are extraordinary athletes.

And that isn't going to be easy.

There isn't enough athletics. That's the problem.

We kid ourselves, but there isn't enough athletics.

You know, we go from September through to May, where,

frankly, there's not a lot to be talking about or writing about.

We've got to remedy that.

We've got to look at how we can extend the season, probably into

climates where you can compete, and we've got to develop those markets.

We've got to make sure that the athletes go head-to-head much

more often than they do.

You know, when you have agents

and managers at the beginning of the season saying, "Oh, well,

"you know, our guy's just going to have a quiet year this year..."

It's a bit like, you know, selling season tickets in Barcelona

and suddenly saying,

"Well, Messi may only play one in every three or four games."

You don't do that.

Seb's philosophy, then, is more athletics,

more head-to-heads, extending the season, expanding, where we

take the sport worldwide, and better promotion of the biggest names.

These are all valid ideas, but making them happen won't be easy,

because, as a sport, it's rare that we all agree with each other.

You've got to go back to the basics! Why did you come into the sport?

Because I was no good at anything else.

-That's not the right answer, Steve.

-Why has the popularity gone?

There have to be root causes.

Maybe we're all a bit too close to it.

I think it has got a bit boring for a lot of young people.

Has what we're really watching changed dramatically since,

you know, we were competing? Yeah, in little ways, but...

You know, people were prepared back in 1983 to sit through nine

and ten days of a World Championship and, you know, be able to...

They're not going to do that now. We just have to be realistic about it.

Will we have a World Championship format that is shorter?

No, not straight away. Will we have that in five years? We have to.

There are going to be countries going, "Yeah, but

"we want to come and we might only have guys in the heats,"

and there are going to be people saying,

"I don't want just three jumps in the triple jump."

It's not about jettisoning our philosophy.

This is now about survival and doing some really radical things.

And, actually,

I have to put to the back of my mind the thought that that's almost

certainly in some areas and, maybe, for a period,

in large parts of the sport, an unpopular thing to do.

-But...

-You're prepared to do the unpopular things.

Yeah, because, actually, I'm not sitting here

thinking that this is

a ten or a 15 or a 20-year project, Steve. It's not.

You have to make so many changes,

because there's become such a big distance between the athletes

and the federation and the governing body, and it's like it's

become two bodies that are fighting against each other,

and we need to close that and actually get them working together.

And so the federation has to come right forward

into this century and be run as a business

and be properly accountable for that, but properly feed back

and get that interaction and communication flowing both ways.

Yeah, we've got these groups now, youth engagement and social media.

I've got guys from Google, you know, and YouTube on these groups

really driving some of the technologies into what we do.

We've been really bad at that.

We've been REALLY bad at that.

If you look at what football has done, the way tennis has done this,

if you look at the American sports, the NBA, NFL,

they've all got great social-media platforms interactive.

We're only scratching the surface of that in our sport.

Big changes, radical reforms. We've talked... We all do.

We go, "Oh, yeah, we should do this and that," and nothing ever happens.

Can our sport survive, going forward?

When we get it right and when we do really throw up extraordinary,

exciting, you know, athletes and big moments,

we can play at the top of our game.

We will make the changes and, yeah,

some of that is not going to be perfect,

but I can tell you, by November of this year, given where we

were in November of 2015, things will look very, very different.

'It's been an enlightening few days.'

Spending time with Seb and behind the scenes at the IAAF,

I've realised that he is exactly what I expected -

he's driven, he's passionate,

he's confident in his ability

to deliver in this role.

Can he save athletics? Well, that's a question still to be answered.

One thing is clear, though. He cannot do it all on his own.

We've heard a lot about integrity, about trust, about reform, but it is

about action, as well, and he's got to take people with him.

And he seems, finally, to be getting the council, the executive board,

the new team he wants to put in place, even the international

media, supporting him in this quest to reform athletics.

And I think the best that we can do is to allow him to get on with it,

to trust him and hope that he does the job right.