Russia Rio Olympics ban: Athletics boss Lord Sebastian Coe is feeling the heat after damning report

WADA’s damning report accusing Russia of widespread state-based drug cheating has lit a fire under the sport of athletics and its leader is feeling the heat.

London Games organiser Lord Sebastian Coe, keynote speaker at the Asia Pacific Cities Summit, Brisbane Exhibition and Convention Centre, South Brisbane. Photographer: Liam Kidston.

THE World Anti-Doping Agency’s damning report accusing Russia of widespread state-based drug cheating has lit a fire under the sport of athletics, but the person feeling the heat most is its world leader Sebastian Coe.

Lord Coe took over as president of the sport’s governing body IAAF just four months ago, but already his leadership is being questioned as he struggles to keep pace with fallout from the WADA report.

The man who won Olympic gold in the 1500m in 1980 and 1984, and was the public face of the London Games in 2012, has always projected an air of debonair and somewhat arrogant charm. For the past week he has looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a chauffeur-driven Bentley.

Day after day more questions are being asked about Coe, the one-time golden boy of British sport. Is he too trusting, ignorant or just naive?

How could he not have known of the corruption in the office of former IAAF president Lamine Diack, under whom he served an eight-year “apprenticeship”?

How could he have made a gushing endorsement of Diack, as part of his speech when taking over the presidency, saying “he will always be our spiritual president and he will certainly be my spiritual president”, when he knew that Diack’s son, Papa Massata, had already been implicated in the bribery scandal that saw Diack charged by French authorities last week?

And how could he possibly have criticised Pound’s call for Russian athletes to receive life bans for breaching doping regulations before he had even read the WADA report?

These matters will all be raised when Coe faces a select committee of British MP’s later this month.

All indications are that he will present as a far less confident individual than the self-assured media darling who has charmed TV interviewers since his days on the track.

Gone is the cockiness of the man who offhandedly, almost angrily, brushed off journalists’ questions over his $200,000 a year ambassadorship with Nike, and called the joint German-British media investigation that sparked the WADA investigation “inaccurate” and “a declaration of war on my sport”.

ATHLETICS: Russia banned from Rio Olympics

In its place is a rather tired-looking sports administrator stunned by the severity of WADA’s findings and the reaction to them.

One who, possibly for the first time in his life, has had to admit he was wrong and must now work tirelessly to clean up his sport and win back the public’s trust.

“I won’t fail but I also admit this is a huge task,” he said.

“This isn’t six weeks to fix things, this is a long journey. We have to start somewhere. I know what I have to do.”

The first thing, it appears, will be to resign from Nike.

When he was elected IAAF president back in August, Coe dismissed media concerns that his role with the sports apparel company might be seen as a “conflict of interests” or that Nike’s sponsorship of twice-banned drug cheat Justin Gatlin might be embarrassing to the organisation.

“There are three things to bear in mind here: a conflict is only a conflict if it is not a registered responsibility,” he said defiantly.

“I think I am probably the most transparent and open person who has ever sought office. You can go on to any number of websites; everything I do is in the public domain.

“Secondly, it is only a conflict if you can’t stand behind procedures and processes and, thirdly, if you behave badly. I don’t intend to do any one of those three.”

Even so, as the much quoted judgment from a 1923 British legal case says, “justice has to be done, justice has to be seen to be done”.

Coe’s association with Nike might have nothing to do with Russian coaches, athletes and politicians rorting the IAAF’s anti-doping laws, but tearing up a $200,000-a year contract will make a good photo op — and given that the IAAF board is now saying that Coe’s previously voluntary role should become a paid position, it might not cost him much financially.

And it will certainly be a lot easier than getting Russia to overhaul its crooked system overnight — especially since, in the early days after the tabling of the report by former WADA boss Dick Pound, they refused to admit they had done anything wrong.

Pound thought differently, releasing the results of an 11-month independent inquiry that outlined systematic doping of athletes by coaches with the knowledge, and in some cases, involvement of high level government officials.

According to the report, Russia’s anti-doping agency RUSADA not only turned a blind eye to the doping, it was actively involved, destroying 1,417 positive samples.

There were claims the Russian secret service FSB had infiltrated RUSADA labs to ensure that the cover-ups were carried out and Pound said it would be “naive in the extreme” to believe that top level government authorities, including Russia’s sports minister Vitaly Mutko did not know of the doping program.

“It was not possible for him to be unaware of it,” he said.

The report claimed Mutko — who is head of the organising committee for the 2018 FIFA World Cup — issued direct orders to “manipulate particular samples”.

Mutko’s first reaction was to threaten closing down Russia’s dope testing labs, saying, “it will save us money”, but in the days following there were offers to sack any coaches found guilty of participating in the drug cheating regimen.

Given that there are now doubts whether the IAAF or even the International Olympic Committee has the constitutional power to ban Russia from taking part in next year’s Olympics as Pound and WADA proposed, it is probable that some lip service and a few scapegoats from the Russians will suffice to get them to Rio.

But will it be enough to lift the pall of distrust and dissatisfaction now surrounding Britain’s one-time national hero Coe?

The jury will be out on that for many years to come — and he knows it.

“You have to back your own instincts,” he said.

“I have to do this without fear or favour and I fully accept I may not even be around when the full fruits of what I need to do are probably going to be recognised.”

Originally published as Russia Rio Olympics ban: Athletics boss Lord Sebastian Coe is feeling the heat after damning report