World Athletics President Sebastian Coe: 'It's not about being popular, it's about doing the right thing'
World Athletics boss Sebastian Coe has proven to be his own
man throughout his life but now says he has never worried about doing what he
thinks is right "even if it means temporary or long-term
unpopularity."
The 67-year-old president of World Athletics, who has
restored the governing body's lustre since he was elected in 2015, said it was
up to others to judge whether he has an independent streak or is stubbornly
guided by his convictions.
"I don't mean this in an arrogant way, I've never got
sleepless nights over what people have thought about me or sometimes what I've
stood up for," Coe said in an interview ahead of the Paris Olympics.
"Actually, sometimes it's not easy leaving the
herd."
The two-time 1500m Olympic champion has taken a hardline
stance compared to many other federations by banning Russian and Belarusian
athletes in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
He also took some flak after World Athletics took the
revolutionary step this year of announcing that Olympic gold medallists will
receive $50,000 payments.
Coe, though, time and again took decisions that were not to
the taste of the political establishment, even if ironically he served as a
Conservative Party lawmaker from 1992-97.
"I went to the Moscow Olympics (in 1980) when the
government that I went on to work for opposed that," he said, referring to
Margaret Thatcher urging a boycott of the Games due to the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan.
"There was an attempt to de-select me as a Conservative
candidate when I chose not to go to South Africa on a rebel tour.
"On the basis that I had an Indian grandfather and my
mother was half Indian, I just thought I'd actually rather face Margaret
Thatcher's ire than the ire of my mother on those sorts of occasions."
Peter, who "was born in one room in the East End (of
London)" and went on to become a qualified engineer and his coach, and
Tina, an actress who "did theatre for many years in London."
"I'm reminded of that famous Woody Allen remark that
he's agnostic. In other words, he's not quite sure which religion not to be
brought up in," Coe said.
"So there were a sort of a melange of mixes. My dad was
old-school Socialist and my mum old-school Liberal.
"Politics was always discussed around the table. My
parents marched in the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in the 60s.
"So it was quite a bohemian upbringing, which some
would say accounts for some of the things I do now."
Peter's bravery in World War II as a merchant seaman, aged just 19, escaping twice, once jumping from a German POW train and then from a camp in Spain, after his ship was sunk -- he was one of only five survivors -- also impacted Coe.
It is, though, a more recent war that has left its mark on
him after he went to Ukraine for their athletics championships last month.
Coe said it was one of the two things at the "wrong end
of the human condition" that will always "remain with me."
"Leaving for Lviv that night from Kyiv, you couldn't
not be moved by seeing a hospital train come in, the second that day," he
said.
"There were a fleet of ambulances on the platform and
another fleet sitting just the other side with families, and an intensive care
unit where people are being operated on.
"Amputations are taking place as that train is coming
from the front and families sitting, standing, waiting for sometimes desperate
news.
The other event came in the wake of yet another huge success
for him -- guiding London from fourth in the running when he took over the bid
campaign to winning in 2005 the right to host the 2012 Olympics.
The day after the vote in Singapore four suicide bombers
killed 52 people and injured over 750 across London in what Coe terms
"that unspeakable act of barbarity."
"We probably spent more time in the next three weeks
going to hospitals and memorial services than we did contemplating the delivery
of the Games over seven years," he recalled.
"I think that certainly coloured in a way the delivery
of the Games."
Coe may on occasion wander from the herd but he insists
"contrary to popular opinion, I am quite a sociable animal".
"I also enjoy solitude. It doesn't spook me. I can
spend time on my own," he adds, suggesting this dates to his largely
training on his own.
That has proved a potent mix, the solitude sparking a
remarkable athletics career and off the track the "sociable animal"
has worked its magic in engineering electoral success.
Nevertheless, despite such a stellar career he rates
something closer to home as his greatest achievement.
"Helping bring four children up, not uniquely because
their mother (Nicky) had more than a hand in this and on occasions probably an
even greater hand, given all the things I have had to focus on," he said.
"But navigating four kids through their teenage years
and into, I hope, happy and adapted, healthy lives is, I think, the greatest achievement
anybody can look to.
"So everything else sort of pales into insignificance
compared to that, which is probably the most important thing I've ever
done."
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