More than 40 years after Sebastian Coe powered to his second Olympic 1500m title, he is still running hungry. He’s in the gym most mornings at 6am, cranking out 40-50km a week on the treadmill, doing conditioning work or lifting weights, before meticulously recording his workouts in training diaries – just as he did during his golden heyday. Even at 68 he is still chasing a fresh ambition: securing the most powerful job in global sport.
“I will work harder for this than I’ll probably ever work for anything,” Coe insisted in December when he launched his manifesto to be the next president of the International Olympic Committee. “It’s the dance that I just couldn’t sit out.” That dance, however, is about to get a lot more frenetic.
Next Thursday at the Château de Vidy in Lausanne, Coe will get his one chance to address and impress the 108-member IOC electorate directly. The stakes are nerve-flutteringly high. Especially as Coe and the other six candidates only get 15 minutes to give their presentations. But Coe has form for delivering under acute pressure, both on the track and having led London’s successful bid for the 2012 Games, even though Paris and Madrid were initially seen as favourites.
Meanwhile in the corridors and shadows of the 18th-century castle, a game within the game will also be played. Palms will be pressed, small talk made, confidences gained. Coe is especially good at this. But so is his chief rival, the 65-year-old Spaniard Juan Antonio Samaranch, the IOC’s current vice-president.
Many eyes will also be on the final member of the “big three” – the Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry, who won seven Olympic medals and would be the first woman and the first African to get the job. The 41-year-old also has the advantage of being the preferred candidate of the current IOC president, Thomas Bach.
It all makes for an election that one astute observer says resembles the Robert Harris papacy thriller, Conclave. On the surface there is a lot of talk of peace, respect, and love. But scratch a little deeper and the cardinals are plunging daggers into each other’s backs.
The comparisons with Conclave don’t end there, for this is also an election suffused with secrecy. None of the presentations in Lausanne will be filmed. The IOC’s rules also prohibit candidates from holding public meetings “of any kind” to promote their bid or to criticise rivals. All that will be missing is the puff of white smoke.
One candidate is rumoured to have been so worried about falling foul of the IOC’s directive regarding the use of photographs of other people in their manifesto – “as this would give the perception of support” – that they resorted to using AI images.
It’s little wonder, therefore, that so few people are willing to speak on the record about what they think is really going on inside such an important race. But in private they are playing informed guessing games about the jostling and machinations to succeed Bach, who has been in power since 2013, when the election takes place in March – and agreeing on more than you might think.
The first area of consensus? That Coe has had a good campaign. It is said that he has spoken to almost every voter in person over the past two years, while his manifesto uses several “what you have told me” sections, to emphasise he is listening to the IOC members’ concerns. His overall message? The organisation must be more open in its decision-making process and be willing to change.
The second? Barring an unforeseen development, it is really between the big three. Some in French circles are pushing the idea that David Lappartient is gaining ground. However most observers believe that the Paris 2024 president, Tony Estanguet, who has just become an IOC member, will have a much better shot in eight years’ time.
Elsewhere Prince Feisal Al Hussein of Jordan, whose manifesto pushes the idea of using sport as a tool for peace and the need to do far more to prevent abuse, is well liked but up against it. Morinari Watanabe, the amiable Japanese businessman who runs international gymnastics, also has his supporters, his plan to stage the Olympics simultaneously in five cities in the five continents has more raised eyebrows than Simone Biles’ triple-twisting double backflip.
The biggest outsider of all, meanwhile, is the Swedish-Briton Johan Eliasch, the president of the international ski and snowboard federation and former CEO of the sports brand Head. But his slick manifesto, which stresses his business and environmental interests, has been well received. His big idea? To rotate the Winter Games among a select group of venues and to conserve a rainforest area the exact size of each Olympic host city.
Sebastian Coe (Great Britain)
Former head of London 2012 and current president of World Athletic who has promised to empower IOC members to have a bigger role.
Kirsty Coventry (Zimbabwe)
Bidding to become first woman to lead the IOC in its history. Has current IOC president Thomas Bach’s backing.
Prince Feisal Al Hussein (Jordan)
Senior IOC figure who has called for sport to be used for peace and for better safeguarding across sport.
Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr (Spain)
IOC vice president, long-time insider and successful investment banker. Seen as favourite.
Johan Eliasch (Sweden-GB)
Runs skiing, successful businessman with Head. Big on the environment.
David Lappartient (France)
Head of global cycling and also pushed the IOC’s involvement with esports
Morinari Watanabe (Japan)
Bidding to become first Asian leader of IOC. Well liked head of gymnastics. Proposes staging the Olympics simultaneously in five continents.
A third area of agreement? That while Coventry should have a shot at being the first woman to run the IOC, her campaign is yet to ignite. Her manifesto was seen as bland, and it doesn’t help either that she has done very little campaigning. She is well liked and has Bach’s silent patronage. But she has work to do.
Perhaps most significantly of all, there is a growing sense that the IOC is increasingly likely to play it safe given the turbulent political currents across the globe. After all, whoever gets the job will need the political skills and diplomatic nous to work with Trump in the buildup to the 2028 Los Angeles Games – as well as possibly Vladimir Putin if Russia is one day brought in from the sporting cold. If that is true it is undoubtedly good for Samaranch Jr and Coe.
But for good measure the next IOC president will also have to renegotiate around a billion dollars’ worth of TV contracts, find new ways to bring in sponsorship, and decide the 2036 Summer Olympics hosts. And if that wasn’t enough, there are also the fierce transgender and differences of sex development (DSD) debates to contend with.
On that score at least, it is notable that almost every candidate says they will protect the female category, which suggests that the IOC does not want a repeat of the controversy that surrounded the women’s boxing in Paris.
Eliasch is the punchiest candidate, but he is far from alone. “It is on the basis of this biological fact that I firmly believe we must ringfence women’s sport, ensuring that only those who were born female can compete in women’s sport,” he writes in his manifesto. “We owe it to female athletes to protect their competitive future through objective, science-informed frameworks, not policies shaped by subjective opinions or ideologies.”
So what of the biggest question of all: will Coe win? Here views fall into two different camps. The first group believes that despite his excellent campaign he is massively up against it, for three reasons.
The first is that Bach will do everything in his power to stop him, with the pair having fallen out over Coe’s decision to ban Russia for state-sponsored doping.
It is also notable that World Athletics’ decision to pay track and field gold medallists $50,000 at the Paris Olympics cost Coe goodwill as he didn’t consult other sports before the decision.
And then there is the biggest block of all: Samaranch Jr, whose father was IOC president for more than 20 years, has spent 30 years establishing a formidable network in what is, in effect, a private club. That, many suspect, will count.
But, intriguingly, no one dares to write Coe off, even privately. They know he is a serial winner, who is as sharp as any Vegas card-counter when it comes to playing the numbers game. If he has entered the race, the sentiment goes, then he sees a path to victory.
Even his fiercest critics also concede that Coe also has the most complete CV. A double Olympic champion. The chair of the British Olympic Association. A Conservative MP and whip. The head of the London 2012 Games. And a successful businessman to boot. And that’s before you get to his successes at World Athletics, including setting up the athletics integrity unit (AIU) to tackle doping.
History also suggests that it is never wise to rule Coe out, whether on the track or at the ballot box. Although in the opaque world of IOC politics, he faces his biggest challenge yet.
For now, though, he is pushing on, striving for victory with the assurance of a serial winner. He knows that at the election, the candidate with fewest votes in each round will be knocked out until someone gets an overall majority. That means that every second and third preference vote could prove vital.
Which brings us back to next week in Lausanne, where every word, smile, and acknowledgment will matter.
