Bombay Durpun - Coe vows to free up voices of IOC members

Coe and the six other candidates to succeed Thomas Bach published their manifestoes on Thursday and will make presentations to the IOC members in January before the election in March.

The British middle distance legend, who has been president of World Athletics since 2015, is happy to present himself as the candidate for reform.

He said he wants to "free up the voices of the (IOC) membership".

"There's no shortage of talent (among the membership). But the question I ask myself as a member is -- what input do I and other members have? And the reality of it is, there isn't enough. There's too much power in the hands of too few people," Coe said in a call with international media.

"I am absolutely committed to the concept that the reset must be around sport... and at the epicentre has to be the athletes, whose voices must be heard."

Coe's decision to break ranks with other Olympic sports and pay bonuses to gold medallists in athletics at the Paris Games upset many inside the IOC, but he is unapologetic.

"If you want a reset in sport, there has to be a reset in prioritisation of your budgets... if you want to innovate and make sport as exciting as possible."

Anyway, he said, "I have never seen myself in anything I have done as an insider."

Coe has also been an outspoken critic of how the IOC handled the gender row involving two women boxers, Imane Khelif of Algeria and Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting, at the Paris Olympics.

Although both were barred from last year's world championships -- which were run by the Russian-led International Boxing Association (IBA) -- the IOC cleared them to compete in Paris and both won gold medals.

In his manifesto, Coe vows to "protect and promote the integrity of women's sport" because it is "at a critical juncture".

He adds: "I will advocate for clear, science-based policies that safeguard the female category. We will work closely with world-leading medical and educational institutions to increase research into female health, performance and exercise physiology.

"We must navigate this with sensitivity and resolve to ensure current and future generations of women choose sport."

G.Vaidya--BD