Yesterday in Parliament the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee heard evidence from Lord Sebastian Coe CH KBE, President of the International Association of Athletics Federations, as part of its inquiry on Blood doping in athletics.
On 4 September 2015 the Committee announced an inquiry into allegations, strenuously rebutted by the International Association of Athletics Federations, that the IAAF failed to follow up test results from some prominent athletes that raised suspicions that blood doping had occurred.
On 8 September 2015 after taking evidence from Michael Ashenden, one of the experts who analysed the data leaked to the Sunday Times, the Committee published a previously "blocked" study commissioned in 2011 by the World Anti-Doping Agency which suggested that 29-45% of athletes under examination may have been blood doping.
Lord Coe was appointed Vice-Chairman of the IAAF in 2007 and was elected President of the Federation earlier this year.
In response to a question from me on education on doping, Lord Coe said,
“It is really important that we have a shift of culture. What I am determined to do is to make that coaches understand that their responsibility is not just anaerobic thresholds or VO2 maxes or the right angle of entry into a high jump or the proper gripping of a pole vault, it is much more than that.
We have to be alert to the malign influences that there are on young athletes, not just from coaches but from the entourage, from doctors, from team officials, from friends and family. We need to make sure that we are also creating a route map for them. We need them to understand that they can still do that cleanly.
This is about trust and confidence. Parents have a very large influence in the sport their children take up. No parent is going to nudge their child to a sport that they think is full of junkies.”
I cited the report into doping by an Independent Commission launched by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which said that within IAAF ‘the acceptance of cheating at all levels, is widespread and of longstanding’.
Lord Coe said that he not ‘accept’ or ‘recognise that remotely’. Adding that,
“The allegations that are being made, particularly around members of the IAAF, and they are only a handful, are the subject of police investigations. I don’t know the details but we will obviously wait for that to follow its proper course. But the systems that I am putting in place, I believe, will create far greater external scrutiny, and will be far more robust, than we have clearly had in place before.”
I concluded asking Lord Coe,
“Do you regret taking on the role of President of the IAAF?”
Lord Coe replied,
“Not for one moment. This has been a sport that has been very good to me. The only reason that I am sitting here is that I started life as an athlete. Athletics will always define me. I am very privileged and very proud to be in a position to help shape the future of my sport. Are there things we could have done better in the past? Absolutely. But I’m determined to fix it.”