Lord Sebastian Coe elected sixth IAAF president
Wednesday 19 August 2015 13:51, UK
Lord Sebastian Coe has been elected president of the International Association of Athletics Federations.
The former Olympic 1500m champion was voted in over Ukraine's ex-Olympic pole vaulter Sergey Bubka by 115 votes to 92 at a meeting of the 214 athletics federations in Beijing.
The UK's Lord Coe, 58, was formerly the IAAF's vice-president, elected for a second term in 2011, and he succeeds 82-year-old Senegalese Lamine Diack as head of athletics' world governing body.
Coe becomes the sixth IAAF president since its creation in 1912 and the second from the UK after Lord Burghley, who was in charge from 1946 to 1976.
Coe, whose beloved sport is currently embroiled in perhaps its most significant and widespread doping scandal, said he would reform athletics in his manifesto - the fourth 'pillar' of which promised to 'ensure integrity and trust in everything we do'.
And after being elected to implement that manifesto, Coe told the meeting in China's capital: "It is my great privilege to be able to start my speech with the word 'friends'.
"As I look around this room, I see so many friends and so many reminders of the battles we have fought side by side over so many years. All my life, I have fought for athletics and fought to be the best I could.
"I've fought to bring it to my fellow countrymen, fought to take it to young people, and fought to make our sport strong. But I have never done this alone. It has always been together with you, my friends.
"As it has been, so it will be. I am seeking your trust and support to lead this sport, but not to do it alone; to do it together, as part of this family."
The Briton, who has been a staunch defender of the IAAF's anti-doping record, has pledged to set up an independent anti-doping agency for the sport.
He said: "There is a zero tolerance to the abuse of doping in my sport and I will maintain that to the very highest level of vigilance."
