TRACK & FIELD
Check out this video to hear the full Spirit of Sport interview with Seb Coe by Laureus .
President of World Athletics , Sebastian Coe , speaks at the opening ceremony see if she is nominated for the 2024 Laureus World Sports Awards in the New Year .
Introducing Changes
I wrote at the beginning we had the chance to shape Budapest in our own fashion . We ’ ve had medal plazas in the past , but this one just seemed to catch fire . I gave the medals to the 100 metres guys and Noah Lyles broke down and said , “ I ’ ve never been to a medal ceremony like this .”
In the past we ’ ve been conservative , we ’ ve had it in the stadium , often at the end of the evening , when most people are actually home or on buses . This time , it was in front of thousands of people in a fan zone . I think it ’ s highly unlikely we ’ re ever going to go back to presentations in a stadium .
We also changed the way that we introduce the athletes . They don ’ t just come out now and find their lane . We showcase it . I think the public needs to be nudged gently about our history . So , 1500 metres winner Josh Kerr walked out past Steve Cram and Hicham El Guerrouj , which shows that we ’ re a sport with a deep history and heritage .
Faith Kipyegon achieved a remarkable double in Budapest and really impressed Seb
Overcoming Challenges
I ’ m very honoured to have been given the stewardship of the sport . The first four years were difficult , we had come through a really bad period , and it was selfinflicted . We didn ’ t have the right governance in place , people behaved appallingly badly . I remember having to travel almost every day of the week , just to keep our sponsors on board .
The next four years was dealing with all the things that we certainly could not have done while we were in crisis mode … issues around transfers of allegiance ; the way the calendar comes together ; the challenges of state-sponsored doping in Russia ; the illegal invasion of Ukraine . Then we had to get the building blocks in place before we can really do what I want to in the last four years of my mandate , which is to have a ruthless , forensic analysis of what is working and what isn ’ t . Particularly around competition .
We ’ ve come out of an extraordinary World Championships and we have an amazing platform to build on for the next World Championships in two years in Tokyo . In Budapest we saw some of the best broadcast numbers we ’ ve ever seen in the first weekend : 28 million in Japan alone were watching athletics . I ’ m not designing the sport just around 15- and 16-year-olds , but you do need to recognise that the world has changed . The way young people consume everything has altered , and we need to make sure that our competitions are exciting and salient .
We should question whether a nine-day World Championships is too much . Does it fit into the lifestyles of people ? We talk about our season being May through to September , but it ’ s really July through to September . And that isn ’ t the basis of a professional sport . So , we do need to get the athletes out on more occasions , we need to see more headto-heads , that ’ s what excites people .
This article is republished courtesy of Laureus , a sporting movement supported by the world ’ s greatest athletes , which celebrates and harnesses the power of sport . Sebastian Coe is President of World Athletics and a Member of Laureus . As an athlete , he won four Olympic medals , including gold medals in the 1500m in 1980 and 1984 , and he set nine outdoor and three indoor World Records in various middle-distance events . Following his retirement from athletics , he served as a member of the British Parliament , then headed the successful London 2012 Olympic bid and served as chairman of the organising committee for these Games . He was elected a vice-president of World Athletics ( then still known as the International Association of Athletics Federations , or IAAF ), and re-elected for another four-year term in 2011 . Since 2015 he has served as president of World Athletics .
Seb ’ s first goal of the 2023 World Champs was to fill the stadium for every session
Looking Further Ahead
2026 is also important for us because , from this point , it ’ s the first year where we don ’ t have a World Championships or an Olympic Games , so we ’ re going to create a three-night athletics spectacle . It will be a television product , we ’ ll take a limited number of the very best athletes per event , and there will be a big prize pot . Also , Netflix has been following our 100-metre runners , male and female , through the season . The last filming was at the World Championships , and there will be a series of 40-minute programmes leading up to the Paris Olympics .
Athletics is , by some distance , the largest Olympic sport – a fifth of the competitors you will be seeing in Paris next year are track and field athletes – so we have an amazing platform . That ’ s why Paris matters so much . Budapest is a start , but we have to continue to future-proof the sport . Some tough decisions may need to be made , but by the time I leave , I hope our sport will look very much different .
The medal ceremonies in the fan zone proved a huge hit with both athletes and spectators
73