While most Britons were demolishing the last of the Christmas turkey in 1979, Sebastian Coe ran a punishing 14.4 miles up the Derwent Valley, defying everything that nature and the elements dared to throw at him. “It was a hard effort, a 5:30 pace in wet tracksuits and slickers,” wrote the Olympic marathoner Kenny Moore, who tried to keep up. “The wind and rain howled out of the Pennines, stopping the men cold in places, blowing white water back up from the spillways into the lakes.”
Eventually Moore had enough and went to sit with Coe’s father, Peter, who was driving behind them, listening to Schubert in the car. But Coe ploughed on. “I’m harder this year than last,” he told his father afterwards. “Clear to see,” came the response. A few months later the world realised it, too, as Coe won a brilliantly defiant Olympic 1500m gold in Moscow.
Almost 45 years later, Coe is still running. Only this time he isn’t chasing the biggest prize in sport but its most powerful job: the presidency of the International Olympic Committee. Later on Monday the IOC will announce the list of approved candidates to replace Thomas Bach next year. And, barring an unexpected twist, Coe will be the biggest name on the ballot.
But his path to victory is far trickier than anything he faced on that wintry run in the Pennines. Because not only does Coe have to persuade the majority of the IOC’s eclectic membership of 111 voters – which includes royalty, former athletes, sports administrators and politicians – he also has to do so while Bach does everything in his power to stop him. In short, this is a world of complex geopolitics, backroom deals, and a level of rivalry intrigue at which even a Vatican monsignor would flinch.
Insiders expect that around half a dozen candidates will end up fighting it out, including David Lappartient, the French president of world cycling, and Morinari Watanabe, the Japanese president of the International Gymnastics Federation. Both are seen as outsiders, along with the widely liked Prince Feisal al-Hussein of Jordan. Then we come to the big three: the Zimbabwean former swimmer Kirsty Coventry, the Spaniard Juan Antonio Samaranch, and Coe himself.
Coventry, who won seven Olympic medals and would be the first woman to get the job, has the advantage of being Bach’s preferred candidate. She is also seen as intelligent and political. But for some she is still inexperienced at 41, and may not attract the majority of African votes.
The 64-year-old Samaranch, meanwhile, may be the man to beat. He is an IOC vice-president, was co-chair of the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, and is seen as popular and smart. It helps, too, that he has the name recognition from being the son of a former IOC president and has already been campaigning intensely behind the scenes.
Yet no one in the field has a better CV than Coe. A double Olympic champion, who ran the London 2012 Games and then became the president of one of the biggest sports? And, for good measure, has had a successful commercial career and been a government whip? That ticks a lot of boxes.
Coe can also point to his achievements and willingness to take tough decisions at World Athletics. The Athletics Integrity Unit has become the gold standard for catching dopers. Banning Russia for state-sponsored doping set him apart from the IOC and was widely lauded. And this year he has also set clear rules for protecting fairness in the female category, while athletics at the Paris Games was seen as a resounding success, too.
Yet none of this is any guarantee of victory. The IOC is like a private members club, with its own set of dynamics that are difficult to predict. Coe clearly upset some members – including Bach – with his decision to ban Russia, while awarding £50,000 in prize money to every Olympic track and field gold medallist was far from universally welcomed either, especially as he didn’t tell other sports in advance.
Some believe that it has left Coe with a steep mountain to climb. Others, however, are convinced there is a path to victory. First, because there is a secret ballot next March, Bach’s influence may not matter as much. Second, Coe’s more open leadership style is likely to be welcomed by members who largely found themselves nodding along to Bach. And a third advantage, which Samaranch also possesses, is being seen as a big beast in a role that needs serious political intuition and heft.
Over the next four years, the next IOC president will have to deal with the continuing fallout between the US and China over the doping case of 23 Chinese swimmers, ahead of the LA Olympics. Possibly also during a Donald Trump presidency. They will also have to negotiate around a billion dollars worth of TV contracts in a vastly changed media landscape and find new sponsors to replace the departing Japanese companies. The IOC’s next president will have to be a serious politician, cheerleader, CEO and sports promoter, sometimes at the same time.
The fight ahead promises to be messy and epic. However history has taught us not to write Coe off. After all, he has an unerring habit of defying the doubters, whether it is by winning Olympic gold in Moscow and Los Angeles, or getting the Games awarded to London in 2005. He could yet do it again.
