Lord Coe plans event shake-up between summer and winter Olympics if he wins IOC presidency

Two-time Olympic 1500m champion demands IOC change

(Getty Images for the AOC)

World Athletics chief Lord Coe declared “innovation is critical” as he launched his bid on Thursday to become the new president of the International Olympic Committee.

Britain’s two-time Olympic 1500m champion has published his manifesto alongside those of the other six candidates in the running to succeed Thomas Bach next year and has vowed to shake up the IOC, claiming “too much power is in the hands of too few people”.

Speaking at the Olympic Park in Stratford, Coe - who chaired the organising committee of London 2012 - said: “Many of the things I’ve done at World Athletics have sparked a debate.

“That’s not something I shy away from. In a world that changes every five minutes, we have to be very open to analysis that doesn’t always fit comfortably with how we see the world. And we should embrace that.”

One of Coe’s radical new ideas would be the possibility of moving some indoor sports from the summer Olympics to the winter Games if he becomes the new president.

“Innovation is critical, we have to be open to new ideas,” he insisted.

“Climate change is going to fundamentally make us have to think about the global calendar, where we take our events and the times of the year that we take our events.

“And some people have even suggested that we might want to look at the balance between the winter and summer Games.

“You have venues where some sports are indoors. You could in theory take them into another time of the year, maybe a winter Games.

“So these are all the things that I would encourage debate to take place on, because only when we have that debate can we discard the things that may not work.”

In his proposals, Coe reinforced previous pledges to boost youth sport, introduce “clear, science-based policies” to protect the female category amid continuing debate in sport over gender eligibility rules, and to listen to athletes.

He also added: “To sustain the Games we must grow - not just financially but also in reach and relevance. Commercial partners and broadcasters want modernisation.”