LAUSANNE: World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe is the highest profile of the seven candidates to have declared on Monday their bid to succeed International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach. Coe will face stiff opposition from, amongst others, Kirsty Coventry, bidding to become the first woman and African to head the IOC, and cycling boss David Lappartient.

The charismatic Briton, a two-time Olympic 1,500 meters champion, also has challenges due to the rules laid down last week by the IOC Ethics Commission. Coe turns 68 on September 29 and although there is room for maneuver to raise the retirement age of IOC members and presidents to 74 he will be older than that come the end of an eight-year mandate.

The election will be at the IOC Session in Athens, which runs from March 18-21 next year. Bach, 70, is standing down after serving 12 years. The German announced at the end of the Paris Games that he would not be seeking another term.

The other four candidates include two from Asia—another continent never to have had an IOC president—Jordan’s Prince Faisal al-Hussein and gymnastics chief Morinari Watanabe. Juan Antonio Samaranch Junior, whose father of the same name was IOC president from 1980-2001 and transformed it into a commercial powerhouse, and a surprise entrant, ski federation president Johan Eliasch, round up the candidates.

Under the election rules Coe, Eliasch, Lappartient and Watanabe will all have to resign as heads of their respective federations and seek re-election as individual members at the Athens Session. First up for the septet is presenting their respective programs to the IOC members at the turn of the year.

“The candidates will present their programs, in camera, to the full IOC membership on the occasion of a meeting to be held in Lausanne (Switzerland) in January 2025,” read a short IOC statement unveiling the candidates.

There will be a transition period post election—not something Bach enjoyed when he succeeded Jacques Rogge in 2013 -- with the new president and his team assuming control in June. Bach has had a bumpy ride, with Russia causing him the most problems.

Ironic as it was their president Vladimir Putin who was the first to phone and congratulate the 1976 Olympic gold medal-winning team fencer on his election in Buenos Aires in 2013. There was the state-sponsored doping scandal which cast a dark shadow over the Sochi Winter Games in 2014 and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

On both occasions Coe took a stronger stand over banning Russians—it emerged they had also been engaging in widespread doping in athletics too—than Bach and the IOC. This independent streak did not endear him to Bach.

‘Big shoes’

Bach was seen by some to have handled Russia well, though others argued his hand was forced to impose strict eligibility conditions on those Russian and Belarusian athletes performing in Paris. Away from Russia he showed a steady hand at the tiller when Covid swept the globe, forcing the postponement but not the cancellation of the Tokyo Games.

Though they took place a year later in 2021 and the majority of events, exceptions being track cycling and road races, were without spectators due to Covd restrictions they were judged a success for even taking place.

Bach will depart not universally acclaimed, but the IOC’s former head of marketing Michael Payne believes he has done an outstanding job. “Thomas Bach has been an incredibly successful president, and leaves the IOC in far stronger shape than when he took over in 2013,” the 66-year-old Irishman told AFP.

Payne, who in nearly two decades at the IOC was widely credited with transforming its brand and finances through sponsorship, said his successor faces some mighty challenges. “He leaves big shoes to fill and I am not sure everyone fully understands the true complexity of the job,” said Payne.

“Bach has made it look all too easy. It is not—and bringing 206 countries together and staging the world’s largest event is not simple. “The future is going to be even more complex—an increasing politicisation of sport, a rapidly changing business and broadcast environment, AI and new technology. “The challenges on the horizon are not straightforward.” – AFP