Sebastian Coe, the mountains, the emails and a staggering lack of self-awareness

It's time that the new IAAF integrity team currently being appointed will investigate Coe with rigour and submit him to the kind of embarrassment that teaches him some humility

Coe’s position at the top of athletics governance seems untouchable (Getty)

It’s the lack of self-awareness that never fails to surprise you, where Seb Coe is concerned. There he was on Tuesday afternoon, tweeting a bland and pompous message to say that gender inequality in athletics governance would be sorted, when personal emails he had been pushed to make public revealed that he knew at least something about an extortion racket which went to the heart of his organisation.

The same blind spot was evident in the explanation he offered of why the telephone call alerting him to this racket did not strike him like a branding iron. It was a phone call which went to the heart of the sport’s integrity. Had you and I been assisting in the running of athletics’ governing body and a call had come in to such effect, we would probably like to think we’d be on the first plane home.

Coe? Well, he’d been out of the country during the month in question - in Marrakesh for his sister’s 50th birthday and “walking in the mountains” with his four children, among other assignments. “I tend not to go through emails myself – particularly when I am holiday with my family,” Coe has revealed. “I speak to my office and they tell me what has come in.” Apparently Seb doesn’t do emails.

In his defence, it should be said he did forward the details of criminality sent to him by the former athlete David Bedford. The suspicion all along has been that Coe was reluctant to make anything of them publicly to preserve his chances of being elected president of his sport’s governing body, the IAAF. They surfaced just as he was launching his leadership campaign. Coe did put them in the right place - the private actions conform to a code, even if his public obfuscation does not.

But doubts about Coe do linger. That vaulting superiority complex of his dictates that he is unimpeachable in his own high mind. Once elected to the presidency, he vowed to be the man who cleaned up his sport and that needs utter transparency. Is it naive to imagine that he could have said: ‘I knew some things. I couldn’t disclose them, then. But now here is the full story.’?

Instead, we have the not unreasonable assertions of the MP elected to lead an inquiry into doping in sport suggesting that Coe has offered an “excuse” and “decided not to share” with investigative MPs the information they needed. This is the Coe who will be lecturing the Russians some time in the foreseeable future. We can all imagine how that will go down.

Coe’s position at the top of athletics governance seems untouchable. This will probably not sink him because the most likely alternative as IAAF president – Sergey Bubka with his egregious Russian connections – is a grim prospect. A far more attractive option is Svein Arne Hansen, the head of sport in Europe, who understands the athletes and the business, has launched a huge anti-doping programme and only this week announced that all European doping test samples would be held for ten years for retrospective testing. The Diacks hated Hansen when they were in power because he was always asking searching questions. Hansen is a preferable option.

All that can be hoped is that the new IAAF integrity team currently being appointed will investigate Coe with rigour and submit him to the kind of embarrassment that teaches him some humility and the lesson that he is accountable and does not always know best. Good luck with that one.