Sebastian Coe vows to root out corruption in athletics

Sebastian Coe has stressed his determination to “rebuild and repair” athletics by leading the sport through the “dark days” of the crisis currently engulfing it.

Last week French police revealed former International Association of Athletics Federations president Lamine Diack — who Coe succeeded in August — was being investigated over an alleged payment of more than €1m to cover up doping offences by Russian athletes.

It then emerged the IAAF ethics commission had brought disciplinary charges against four men, including the son of Diack and the former head of its anti-doping department.

The World Anti-Doping Agency will publish its independent report into allegations of widespread doping among Russian athletes today.

Coe said: “I feel clear shock, a great deal of anger and a lot of sadness. These are dark days for our sport but I’m more determined than ever to rebuild trust in our sport.

“The day after I got elected, I started a massive review. Understandably, in the light of the allegations that have been made, that review has been accelerated and I am determined to rebuild and repair the sport with my colleagues. But this is a long road to redemption.”

Coe, who served as IAAF vice-president prior to his current role, insisted he had not been aware of any allegations against Diack until last week’s news.

“That was the first that I had heard of them and I think that is almost certainly the case for virtually everybody in our sport,” Coe said.

He was also asked if he regretted referring to Diack as the sport’s “spiritual” leader when he succeeded him.

“I’m well aware I’m going to come in for criticism for those remarks,” Coe said.

“It does presume I had a list of allegations in front of me at that moment, and I didn’t. Should we, in hindsight, have known more? Yes, probably we should have done — that is why I have accelerated these reforms at breakneck pace this week.”

Richard McLaren, one of the authors of the independent report being published today, has been quoted as saying that the publication will be “a real game-changer for sport” and that it will demonstrate “a whole different scale of corruption” even compared to the Fifa scandal.

When it was put to Wada president Craig Reedie that the report was likely to cause shock, he said: “I think there’s been a great deal of speculation. It will be very robust in terms of what it was set up to do, which was to examine serious breaches of doping rules in Russia, and the anti-doping community and sport should be ready for that.”