Hosting the Olympics is a massive national undertaking: Sebastian Coe

The president of World Athletics and a 2x Olympic champion on how prepared India is to host the 2036 Games, how Neeraj Chopra has 'turbocharged' the country's interest, navigating the tough geopolitical terrain, and more

By Kathakali Chanda Forbes India Staff

Published: Nov 29, 2024 10:33:33 AM IST

Updated: Nov 30, 2024 09:37:08 AM IST

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The president of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe. Image: Photo by ANDREJ ISAKOVIC / AFP

When British running legend Sebastian Coe won his Olympic gold medals (in 1980 and 1984), sports was consumed across the world through print and linear TV. “The recent Olympic Games in Paris, for many of my friends, cousins, nephews, nieces in the States, was a TikTok experience,” says Coe, now the president of World Athletics. “The behavioural pattern of audiences has changed dramatically just in the past few years.”

A year or so ago, World Athletics, under Coe’s stewardship, set out to have a “ruthless” look at their product and find ways to elevate it and reach it to households through multiple gadgets. In June, it signed a five-year broadcast deal with Tata Communications to produce innovative content and foster engagement, thereby, amping up its reach across the world. “Sports need to be brought alive. You need those indelible moments to be captured and presented in a creative way,” adds Coe, who is now in the running for the presidency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), once the tenure of Thomas Bach, the current incumbent, ends in 2025. In Mumbai recently to address a media roundtable on the broadcast deal, Coe later sat down for a one-on-one with Forbes India. Edited excerpts from the combined interviews:

Q. India has announced its intention to host the 2036 Olympics. Your thoughts about it?

The overwhelming emotion is one of gratitude. What is it that any sports rights holder wants? Interest in their events. At World Athletics, we are excited that every time we go to market with a bid, we have lots of global cities that want to do it. So that's a good sign; it shows there's an appetite for sport. And it doesn’t get any bigger than the Olympic Games.

It doesn't get any more complicated either. And I know from delivering a Games, it's the most complicated piece of project management any city undertakes under normal circumstances. You start with a bidding team of maybe 100 people, you end up with an organising committee of over 10,000—and that's just the organising committee. Then you have all the agencies, the government departments—it's a massive national undertaking, so nobody should ever throw their hat in the ring taking lightly the challenge that lies ahead of them. The bidding processes have now altered, so that's a different landscape than the one that I had to navigate before the London Games in 2012. I’m excited and I hope I live long enough to witness India staging the Olympic Games.

Q. Where do you think India really stands in terms of its capability to host an Olympic Games?

Look, you have amazing businesses, you've got a political appetite that understands that sports and sports events help economic development, social development, health and education. So you have all the assets and that's important. The skill is bringing all those assets together in a politically impartial way that allows a seven-year delivery process to go seamlessly. And that's a challenge anywhere, not just in India. And this will be competitive—there are lots of other cities that have shown a very keen interest in this.

Q. How does World Athletics plan to break into the cricket-viewing fanbase in India, and have athletes like Neeraj Chopra elevated India’s stature as a track and field country?

We’ve talked about the way we show our product in the best possible way with the technological, telecommunications underpinnings. But, for us, the other Holy Grail is how do you build the profile of the competitors. And it isn’t just about showing them for a few moments in a stadium. What I think this partnership [with Tata Communications] will allow us to do much better is to get behind the scenes, to unlock that content that doesn’t just show athletes in their competitive setting. The big challenge to the Olympic movement is how it stays exciting for the two years there isn’t a Games. It’s exactly the same for us.

In a strange way, technology actually broke that barrier. During the two years of the lockdown, when the athletes were communicating about how they were dealing with not being able to compete or train, there was almost a levelling up where the fans suddenly understood how engaged the athletes were and the athletes realised the fans mattered to them. We want this symbiotic relationship not just during a global crisis, but on a regular account.

If we are talking specifically about the progress of Indian athletics, it’s visible to me. I’ve been coming to India for a long time, but, in the last 10 years, we aren’t just talking about the occasional magnesium flare. We know the turbocharging impact that [Neeraj] Chopra had when he won the World Championships and an Olympic title. I watched the Indian team in Lima [World U-20 Championships], in relays, in field events—there’s a broadening of India’s presence at the highest level. And that will help break into that viewership.

I, obviously, have a dual interest in Chopra because of my Indian background [his grandfather was Punjabi]. I'm also delighted he spends much of his year at the university in the UK that I'm a chancellor of [Loughborough University]. I often bump into him—in the winter, and he normally has about 27 track suits and five beanies on [laughs].

Also read: Train smart, don't burn out: Esha Singh

Q. There are multiple geopolitical challenges around the world now. Russia was banned from the Paris Olympics [due to the Ukraine war], but ever since there have been more aggressors. For instance, what's happening between Israel, Palestine and Lebanon right now.

Yeah, it's a complicated landscape.

Q. Do you think similar steps are going to be taken in future?

World Athletics has dealt with it the way you know we've dealt with it. And we just deal with what is in front of us. I'm not a great believer of the ‘what about’ argument because it stops you from making decisions. And if you are in a leadership role, then it's incumbent upon leaders to make decisions. Sometimes those decisions are not going to be universally popular. But you have to make those decisions in accordance with what you think is in the best interest of your sport, and sport must remain autonomous in that landscape.

Q. Have you had any conversations about steps being taken against Israel when it comes to participation in events?

No, I spend time speaking to the Israeli track and field federation, and I also spend time speaking to the Palestine federation and, of late, have met the Lebanon federation, and these aren't discussions about passports or politics. They're about how do we keep, under intolerably difficult circumstances, sport and athletics, and particularly the athletes, in competition and in training. We're not politicians, we're not foreign ministers, we're not the United Nations. Those debates have to take place elsewhere. But we have the responsibility to maintain the integrity of competition and do everything we possibly can to keep athletes safe and secure and in their sport.

Q. One of the debates that has flared up recently is about the inclusion of transgender athletes and their participation. And World Athletics has limited their participation. What do you say to those who argue that this comes in the way of fairness and inclusivity?

Follow the science. Absolutely follow the science. And if we're talking about human rights, whose human rights? The majority of female competitors who want the ability to compete without a glass ceiling, where gender cannot trump biology, and it is our responsibility as a sport to protect, at all costs, the female category. Of course, if you want to be a purist about it, there are inherent tensions, and when you have competing interest groups, you have to make judgements. And this isn't a unilateral decision I made. It's often overlooked that I have a 26-strong council comprising 13 men and 13 women. I have an executive board, we have working groups in this space and we have some of the world's best, and I really mean best medical and health scientists working with us, and the decision that we took was unanimous.