Sebastian Coe: IAAF chief

Sebastian Coe, President of International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), on Thursday said he would clean up athletics from its current mess.

According to InsideGames, an online portal, Coe spoke to the British Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sports Committee during an inquiry on recent excessive doping cases in world athletics in London.

The IAAF president defended his sport against recent accusations of rampant drug abuse and also his ignorance about the extent of the problem before he succeeded Lamine Diack, former IAAF president.

“I have experience and support to clean up athletics, have there been failures? Yes. Will we fix them? Absolutely, I am focused on doing that.

“This is a crossroads for athletics, I want the sport to be trusted again and I can put the system back in place,’’ he said.

Coe also claimed he did not have suspicions that Diack, currently under investigation for accepting money to help Russian athletes, who failed drug tests to avoid suspensions, was corrupt.

“I felt shock suffused with sorrow and anger about his arrest in Paris last month, he was our President, if I had seen allegations I would probably not have said it,’’ he noted.

Accompanied by Thomas Capdevielle, IAAF anti-doping manager, Coe refuted accusations published by “The Sunday Times’’ in August that a third of the medals had been won by athletes with suspicious blood tests.

“There are three different issues here, we are dealing with the management of blood database, and then there is World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) indicting Russia.

“The third issue that has implicated a handful of people at the IAAF at being complicit, there is a reckless use of database to risk the reputation of clean athletes.

“I am focused on sorting out the mess IAAF currently finds itself in, if we do not do that, there would be no tomorrow for my sport.’’ the president said.