He was the great architect of the success of the 2012 London Games. Double Olympic medallist in 1980 and 1984, Sebastian Coe – who became a lord under Tony Blair in 2000 – has been head of World Athletics, the international athletics federation, the premier discipline of the Olympic Games, since 2015. The champion, still slender and lively at 67, has been a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 2020 and is seen as one of the potential successors to the president of the organization, Thomas Bach – who maintains uncertainty over a third term from 2025. The IOC hypothesis, undermined by old conflict of interest cases, is not on the agenda for the moment, as the former athlete says he is focused on his current mission. As head of World Athletics, headquartered in Monaco, Sebastian Coe has distinguished himself by his firm stance towards Russian athletes, who are not allowed to compete in the championships, even under a neutral banner. The leader also never misses an opportunity to show his support for Ukrainian athletes, who have been hit hard by the ongoing conflict.
The former British runner has also managed to modernise the image of athletics, inventing a new, more compact competition format and encouraging athletes to communicate on social networks, to encourage more young people to take an interest in these sports. Twelve years after the London Games, he remembers the best of this Olympiad, which transformed London and contributed a lot to the image of the United Kingdom. His advice to his French counterpart at the Paris Games, Tony Estanguet? “Don’t let it all go by too quickly”, know how to savour what promises to be “fantastic and extraordinary” Games. For L’Express, the president of World Athletics shares his vision of Paris 2024.
L’Express: As former president of the organizing committee for the 2012 Olympic Games, can you tell us what the essential ingredients are for a successful Olympics?
Sebastian Coe: The first essential ingredient is optimism. Understanding that the Games are much broader than all the organizational issues or even the results. The overall ambition must be to create Games that engage, excite and even unite the country. Games that achieve this at the national level, but also at the international level: recognizing that you are, during this Olympic and Paralympic fortnight, the host of more than 200 countries. The opening ceremony must be the symbol of this: it must galvanize, excite and, to a certain extent, provoke. Without being too esoteric, or too chauvinistic, so that the rest of the world does not say that it is only for France. So that is one of the challenges to be met. The second is the coherence of decisions. The challenge of the Games is not in the last two weeks or the last two years, but it is about creating a vision, making it a reality every minute of the day. It’s about the culture within the organisation. You have to make sure that you’re doing things that are in the best interests of everyone who’s there, and not just responding to constraints that are imposed on you by the International Olympic Committee, or the government, or the mayor. What I’m most proud of in London, apart from the glaring legacies, is not all the things that we’ve achieved. It’s all the things that haven’t gone wrong because we’ve been able to act very quickly. People always ask me what things I would have done differently. In reality, you always do them differently because your normal day at the Olympic organising committee is often just a series of mid-course corrections. It’s a bit like training for an athlete. Every training session reveals something. And that’s often the basis for the next training session. Or the next competition. By being able to identify these subtle nuances of what is wrong, we can correct the situation quickly and not three months later when the problem has become glaring and more complicated to solve. The golden rule remains to communicate very openly. The more complicated things become, the more we must communicate.
And you find all this in what you have seen of the organization of the Paris Games?
I think so. Every Olympics is different, but 80% of project management is the same. And it becomes more and more uniform as you get closer to the Opening Ceremony. The variation in that final 20% really depends on the nature of your Games, your country, your political system, your structures and the IOC’s approach. At the time, I worked very closely with Jacques Rogge [NDLR : président du CIO de 2001 à 2013]I had a very fluid relationship. He was very clear from the start that he would never discuss the Games in an external environment, with ministers from my country or the mayor, without me being there. Similarly, I would never discuss the IOC or our commitment without him being there, and that’s what we did for seven years. It worked very well. His view was that if you have a good organising committee, you have to trust them. He believed that the IOC should be seen as a controlling organisation that worked closely together in certain key areas. These were not high-profile discussions. They were just happening all the time.
Twelve years on from London 2012, have you seen a long-term impact of the Games for the UK?
In a survey that was done six months after the Games, 80% of Britons said they would like to see them held again. 75% said the Games had had a positive impact on their children. If you look at East London, which was a deprived area at the top of the deprivation index in the UK, it has been transformed into a new city with affordable homes, infrastructure and sporting facilities that it had never had before. Finally, some 70% of people said the Paralympics had really helped to raise the profile of disability and impairment, particularly in the workplace and in education. The legacy has been profound. On the sporting side, our Olympic teams are stronger today than they were in 2012. We were the first country to win more medals at subsequent Olympics, in Rio and then in Tokyo. The legacy was therefore also very important on the sporting level.
We are currently living in a tense period, with several conflicts underway. What do you think the Olympic Games can bring to the world at this time? Just the power of symbols and performance, or more than that?
The Olympic Movement has always been more than that. It is one of the greatest demonstrations of humanity. It embodies in essence the human condition, the competitive nature of individuals and even nations. And the broader impact that sport can have on everything from health to education, nation building and social cohesion. The Olympic Movement is very, very powerful. But like all movements, it has to continually question its relevance, particularly in a rapidly evolving and changing world, where young people are asking themselves many more moral questions than my generation or my parents’ generation. They are deeply against discrimination. As with universities, governments, associations, they expect the Olympic Movement to resemble the world they live in. If it doesn’t, they turn to something that resembles them more. That’s why we all have to be aware of that in our sports organisations, and in any organisation.
You have made many changes to make athletics more attractive to young people. Perhaps this is also necessary for the Olympic movement?
These changes are much deeper than just competition. You know, for example, I am very proud that, with World Athletics, we are the only international sports organization whose board of directors is composed of equal numbers of women and men. Thirteen men, thirteen women. Also, to interest young people, there is also what we are doing at the moment, which is to look at our product, how we promote our sport, what it looks like on television, what it looks like in stadiums, the introduction of new competitions. But, above all, the real issue is: are we taking strong positions on major global issues or are we just doing what everyone else is doing? That is also important for young people. I hope to be at the head of an organization that is in tune with their concerns. And, in particular, some of the policies around sustainable development. Or other less prominent but important issues, such as transfers of allegiance, because they touch on some issues related to the protection of the well-being of athletes and even human trafficking. [depuis 2018, la fédération internationale d’athlétisme restreint les possibilités de naturalisation d’athlètes, afin de limiter les dérives dans ce domaine].
To conclude on a more personal note, apart from athletics, what are the sports that you will be watching with interest during the Paris Olympic Games?
I’m a huge judo fan, I’ve done it on and off throughout my life. Teddy Riner is one of my heroes. So if I can find some time, it’ll probably be to go watch judo competitions.
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