Seb Coe: It’s more crucial than ever that athletes can feel free to speak out

This is a pivotal time for sport’s image as concerns linger over Russia and its anti-doping agency
Whistleblower: 800-metre runner Yulia Stepanova fled Russia after she revealed the dirty secrets of doping in Russian athletics
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Seb Coe17 November 2017

Athletes need a voice and it’s right that sports and federations create the correct platform for them to be heard.

Perhaps more than ever that’s the case with what we’ve woken up to this week with the row at British Gymnastics, the racism allegations in women’s football regarding Eni Aluko and also in my own sport. And that’s just to name a few.

It’s not easy to stand up, break free from the herd and be listened to but it’s essential that athletes feel that they can do exactly that. The idea that someone feels they can’t speak out for fear of not being selected or losing their funding, that simply cannot be tolerated.

I was fairly outspoken back in my day as an athlete and I caused a few issues which probably cost me a place in the British team at the 1988 Olympic Games.

So this is not a new concept, and it’s certainly not alien to me, but it is vital that athletes feel that they can speak out if they’re in an environment in which they don’t feel safe or secure without fear of being cut for a team or whatever it is.

With my other hat on as President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), don’t get me wrong — such an approach can make life complicated with an athlete questioning a federation.

But athletes need a platform to air their concerns. That will be uncomfortable and sometimes that will cause unease but it makes federations or coaches or whatever it is take a closer look at themselves and realise that often there is the need for change.

I know I’ve had some pretty tough and feisty conversations with athletes, particularly in light of the Russian problem. We were being pushed — and rightly so — to find out what we were going to do about it.

Sports leaders must also have the muscle and the mindset to dig deep for root cause not skate along the surface

Seb Coe

In many ways, it is the athletes that are best placed to make those changes. Take our sport — the athletes have a network and pathways often closer to the ground to unearth malevolent practices better than people like me. And the intelligence they can share can be pretty cutting edge.

The ultimate case in point is Russian 800m runner and whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova. It’s important that she gets the recognition she deserves, which is why I invited her to address the first IAAF values commission.

As an athlete I always tried to make my voice heard and I was fairly outspoken, whether that be about apartheid in sport or the issue of the sport being amateur or professional some years ago now when we were having that debate. As an athlete, it was important to usher in change.

I was lucky enough to be on the first athletes’ commission back in 1981 when, along with some other athletes, I was invited by then International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch to speak at IAAF Congress.

Thomas Bach, the current IOC President, was another driving force of that group of athletes, which also consisted of the great Kenyan runner Kip Keino, Pal Schmitt, who would go on to become Hungarian president, and Ken Read, who would later play a key role in the Winter Games.

Little did we know then but it was Samaranch’s plan for the early formation of a proper athletes’ commission, and he was smart enough to be moving the IOC from a small chateau in Switzerland to a multi-billion-pound business. He knew he needed to take the athletes with him. And on that occasion, I had four minutes as the first athlete to address IOC Congress.

It’s been interesting to see the evolution of the process in the intervening 36 years. There’s not a coach I’ve worked with or other coaches in athletics and other sports I know that would countenance anything against the welfare of their athlete. For them, these athletes are like family.

The overwhelming number of coaches in this world are good, and they enormously overwhelm and outnumber the poor ones, and bullying by a coach simply will not be tolerated. If anything, it’s self-defeating.

Of course, coaches need to be uncompromising and most of the best athletes will tell you that they welcome creative criticism as they need to get better. And we can’t get to a situation where we turn this into a witch hunt on the many, many good coaches out there.

I’ve heard for calls for an independent ombudsman to address sporting grievances in this country, and my instinct is that’s not necessarily the right way to go.

Instinctively for me, the better avenue is to have independent structures within a body as we have in athletics. Take the Athletics Integrity Unit under David Howman, for example.

I don’t know what’s passing under his radar, or for that matter what passes through our portal, which I believe had 40 messages in its opening 24 hours, which shows the value of having a place where athletes feel safe to air their concerns.

Let’s be clear here. All sports leaders have an obligation to create an environment for athletes to compete and raise concerns without fear or recrimination but that means they must also have the muscle and the mindset to dig deep for root cause not skate along the surface.

A big part of that has been Russia. Pressure mounted further yesterday on the International Olympic Committee to act against Russia ahead of the Winter Olympics as its anti-doping agency was again declared not fit for purpose. The IOC’s executive board will meet in Lausanne on December 5 to decide what action will be taken — Bach has remained reluctant to impose a wholesale ban on Russia at the Games.

The latest report from Rune Andersen and his taskforce in Russia when the IAAF meets at the end of the month in Monaco will be equally critical.

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