Defiant Sebastian Coe won’t concede on Olympic Games

Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, believes the Tokyo Olympics could still happen.

The Olympic Rings logo outside the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne. Picture: AFP

Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, believes the Tokyo Olympics could still happen despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coe believes many would like to see the Olympics proceed and it could buoy spirits in a time of immense hardship.

“Sport plays a very important social role in all our communities, it does in the UK and in Australia, and as long as we do nothing to imperil the athletes or risk public health challenges, I do genuinely think most people would rather see our athletes, in a safe set of circumstances, competing on behalf of their country, in a time where we are all under massive, massive challenge,” Coe told The Australian. “That would provide some psychological cushioning at a time where families are under significant duress.”

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“It can’t be a case of come what may, there has to be sensible judgments made, and I think sport will make that judgment as and when it needs to.”

The man in charge of the No 1 Olympic sport said no decision needed to be made four months out from the Games.

“I don’t think any sport, certainly not athletics, would say we are going to a Games come what may; the welfare and the safety of the athletes is of uppermost (importance),” he said. “What we are saying at this moment is we don’t need to make a decision with four months to go, but no sport, including athletics, is going to do anything that will put our athletes in dangers.”

Coe added: “There clearly comes a point where we have to make a judgment but we are not at that point now.

“This is a shifting landscape and this decision might become very obvious, very quickly.”

Coe said a recent phone hook-up with his counterparts in FIFA, swimming and gymnastics, was solely focused on managing their way through this crisis.

They are all taking it “hour by hour” with the intent to keep the athletes safe and keeping them training. Coe said it was the most extraordinary situation he had been involved in as an athlete and a sports administrator. He said the crisis facing the Olympics eclipses the mass boycott of the Moscow Games in 1980.

“I was an athlete who went through the Moscow challenges, there are some similarities, I guess I am just slightly older and wearing a slightly different hat,” he said. “I remember being an athlete heading towards Moscow where there were months where I was pounding the pavement wondering if I was going.

“I think there is a difference this time. I didn’t have concerns whether what I was doing was going to imperil the health and safety of my kids, family, parents, grandparents.

“I don’t think athletics has spent more time trying to figure out how we can manage our way through this; both protect the athlete, but do it in a way that allows them to continue to train and to earn.”

Coe said it is not a level playing field with COVID-19 disrupting many countries’ training and qualification processes as well as anti-doping measures universally.

“It is inevitable you have athletes in quite restricted environments, particularly in France, Italy, Spain, where athletes are not able to leave the house,” he said.

“We have to set the ambition as difficult as it will be to try and level that playing field. We don’t want a whole group of athletes who have sort of emerged from the peak (of COVID-19) and they are back training – while you’ve got a whole group confined to their houses or others who haven’t got to the peak of the challenge and suddenly with five weeks they are notable to compete. I wish I had a universal answer. I don’t have an answer, but I spend a lot of waking time trying to manage how to do this.”

On Thursday, Australian Olympic Committee chief executive Matt Carroll said his organisation and the IOC were not “living in a bubble” as they prepared for the Tokyo Games to proceed as planned. Carroll said they “owed it to the athletes” to ensure they could take part.

While some have criticised the Olympic movement for pushing forward with the Games as planned, Carroll said they and the IOC are well aware of the crisis facing the world because of COVID-19.

“The AOC does not live in a bubble,” Carroll said. “There is a global health crisis. We recognise that people are suffering – people are sick, people are losing jobs, businesses are struggling amid enormous community uncertainty.

“The International Olympic Committee advised by the World Health Organisation, has assured us that the Olympic Games in Tokyo are proceeding in four months. We owe it to our Australian athletes to do everything we can to ensure they will participate with the best opportunity in those Games.”

In a telephone hook-up on Tuesday night with IOC president Thomas Bach, Carroll said they asked dozens of questions about quarantine, health, and what would happen if a virus broke out during the Games.

The AOC expect to receive the answers in the coming weeks. Carroll said the Olympic hierarchy is taking it extremely seriously.

“The president also emphasised the IOC is not in an Olympic bubble,” Carroll said. “They like us are fully aware of the impact the COVID-19 is having on athlete preparation, their families and the world community.”

He said the Games would not be postponed – and going ahead or cancellation were the only two options.

“If things change, then the IOC change,” Carroll said. “(But) the (IOC) have not talked about postponement to date.”

Australia’s Chef de mission Ian Chesterman said they are looking at extended training camps either in Australia or Japan before the Olympics, as well as charter flights to get the athletes to Tokyo.

“Our focus is moving to the planning of our pre-Games preparation to ensure we get our athletes to the Games healthy, prepared and virus free,” Chesterman said.