byLarry Eder
VISION OF SEB COE
LONDON (GBR): IAAF Vice President Seb Coe has made public his vision for Athletics and the IAAF as part of his campaign to become President of the IAAF. In a campaign Manifesto entitled ‘Growing Athletics in a New Age’, Coe outlines four key pillars underpinned by a comprehensive series of proposals to guide his vision for Athletics and the IAAF if he is successful in his bid to become IAAF President.
The four key elements are Embracing change to secure a better future, Decentralization and empowerment, Maximizing commercial growth and Ensuring integrity and trust. This plans include reform of World Athletics Calendar, focus on youth engagement, restructuring the IAAF commercial department and ensuring greater commercial opportunities for athletes and increased anti-doping and integrity resources with creating a new IAAF Ethics Department and supporting the independence of all Member Federations. “We need to be more innovative in how we project and present our sport to the world, both in venue and on screen, give serious consideration to an ‘IAAF Street Athletics’ circuit to help reach new audiences, and create a new IAAF division that has the sole purpose of focussing on youth engagement, especially via social media,” said Coe.
(Editor’s Note: The irony is not lost on this writer. A German TV program, with an article in L’Equipe is about to embroil the current IAAF President and his family in a ethics scandal. The sport is waiting for the results on Rita Jeptoo’s second sample, the case in front of the IAAF Ethics Board regarding Lilya Shobukhova are reminders that new leadership is needed and a new approach to the sport is needed.
At the same time, one wonders what IAAF Council members are doing when a dinner is organized at the Caribbean Games, and to the dismay of the attendees, the dinner is a recruiting session for support for an IAAF Presidential candidate who has not put his name officially in the game.
Our sport is at a crossroads. How do we encourage young people to participate? How to do we develop women coaches and officials? How do we bring in new sponsors with so many sports and activities vying for the same dollars? How do we save cross country on the global stage?
Those are just some of the issues to be considered by the candidates for IAAF Presidency in 2015.
