'A fantastic candidate': Alistair Brownlee backs Seb Coe for IOC presidency

Coe will discover on Thursday whether his plans to reform the International Olympic Committee have convinced its members to vote him in as the organisation’s next president.

Sheffield-raised Coe, a double Olympic gold medallist and currently the boss of World Athletics, says he has been “training for the best part of his life” for the IOC’s top job.

He has faced tough races in his off-track career before, not least in helping London secure the 2012 Olympic Games in the face of stiff competition from Paris and Madrid, but today’s vote at the IOC Session in Greece is arguably the most challenging yet, where he will be up against six other candidates.

Juan Antonio Samaranch – whose late father of the same name held the IOC presidency from 1980 to 2001 – has been identified by some observers as the man to beat, while Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe is said to be current president Thomas Bach’s preferred choice.

A victory for Coventry would make her the first woman, and the first African, to hold the IOC’s highest position.

Coe’s campaign has drawn support from the track and field community, with Jamaican sprint star Usain Bolt, four-time Olympic gold medallist Sir Mo Farah and 11-time Paralympic gold medallist Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson giving him their backing.

Having won the first of his two gold medals in triathlon at London 2012, Brownlee has given Coe his own glowing endorsement as the man to take the Olympic movement forward.

“Seb is a great candidate, and I’m not just saying that because I’m British,” said Brownlee, a trailblazer in his chosen sport, just as Coe was in middle-distance running in the 1980s.

"He’s been in all different parts of the Olympic movement, he’s led international federations, he’s led national Olympic Committees, he’s organised Olympic Games’, he’s a two-time gold medallist.

"I think he makes a fantastic candidate.”

Coe has stressed that the integrity of sport must be put before all else – and that includes protection of the female category.

“If you do not protect it, or you are in any way ambivalent about it for whatever reason, then it will not end well for women’s sport,” Coe said when he launched his campaign last year. I come from a sport where that is absolutely sacrosanct.”

World Athletics is set to vote through new rules requiring athletes to undergo a cheek swab to prove they are biologically female and therefore eligible to compete in its elite female events.

Coe has admitted to being “uncomfortable” watching the women’s boxing competition at last summer’s Olympic Games in Paris, where two fighters – Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting – won gold medals despite the International Boxing Association alleging they had been disqualified from the 2023 World Championships for failing to meet gender eligibility criteria.

Three of Coe’s rivals for the presidency – Samaranch, Coventry and Prince Feisal Al Hussein of Jordan – were on the IOC’s executive board which signed off on the eligibility criteria for the Olympic boxing tournament.

Coventry admitted in January that the IOC needed to “learn lessons” from what happened in Paris and said: “As a female athlete, you want to be able to walk onto a level playing field.”

Coe has also spoken about his intention to draw more on the expertise within the wider IOC membership, saying that currently “too much power is in the hands of too few people”.

The presidential voting process is expected to begin at around 2pm GMT. The first candidate to secure an absolute majority among the voting members will win the contest. If no absolute majority is secured in the first round, subsequent rounds will take place.

The candidate securing the fewest votes in each round will be eliminated from the next round.

The other candidates are David Lappartient, the president of cycling’s global federation the UCI, International Ski Federation president Johan Eliasch and the president of gymnastics’ world federation Morinari Watanabe.

Additional reporting: Jamie Gardner, PA