19 August 2015

Lord Sebastian Coe has been elected president of athletics’ governing body, the IAAF.

The sport’s 214 federations cast their votes in Beijing ahead of next week’s IAAF World Championships, to decide who should lead the sport, with the 1980 and 1984 Olympic 1500m champion polling 115 votes to Ukrainian pole vault legend Sergey Bubka’s 92.

The former London 2012 chairman succeeds Senegal’s Lamine Diack, who has led the organisation for the past 16 years. Coe will serve an initial term of four years as President starting on August 31 2015, following the conclusion of the Championships taking place at the Bird’s Nest Stadium.

He said his IAAF presidential win was the "second biggest and [most] momentous occasion of my life" after the birth of his children.

Coe commented afterwards: "I am deeply honoured that our sport has placed its trust in me. There is no job I want to do more – nor with greater commitment”.

He tweeted shortly after the result was announced: "Delighted and humbled by the confidence shown in me by the IAAF family – thank you, now the hard work begins”.

Coe reaffirmed the key policies he would implement as President of the IAAF after his election.

• Olympic Athletics Dividend that would provide a minimum $100,000 of additional funding over a four year period for all 214 Member Federations from the funds received from the IOC.
• Establish a World Athletics Calendar Reform and Sports Presentation Group to enhance athletics as a product within a more harmonised World Calendar ‎
• Develop a communications strategy to improve day to day communications and relationships with Member Federations
• Move towards an external, fully Independent Anti-doping Agency to deal with doping violations in international level athletics
• Improve the commercial support to Member Federations, add new sponsors and enhance the relationships with existing IAAF commercial partners
• Create an IAAF Youth Marketing and Communications Division to advise the IAAF on how best to drive engagement with young people
• Revamp the IAAF’s Development Programmes with Mobile Regional Development Centres informed by regional Member Federations’ needs
• Appoint an IAAF Values Commission to help guide and support young athletes in making positive and beneficial decisions for their career.

UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner said: "It’s momentous for the sport. This felt like a cross roads for me. The challenges facing athletics are such that we need a great president right now and I do believe Seb’s got the range of skills and the character that’s required to really pull us forward."

Coe’s election was part of a clean sweep for Great Britain at the Congress, with all five British candidates being elected to various positions. Paula Radcliffe was elected to the IAAF Cross County Committee, Kelly Sotherton was elected to the IAAF Women’s Committee, Keith Davies won a place on the IAAF Technical Committee and Peter Marlow retained his position on the IAAF Race Walking Committee.