Sportblog | The Guardian — Lord Coe RSS

Mar 06, 2018

Sebastian Coe should follow Roger Bannister’s lead for athletics legacy | Andy Bull

With the Heritage Collection the IAAF wants to yoke the sport’s present to its glorious past but there was an aspect missing from the president’s speech at the launchAt midday last Sunday, Sebastian Coe launched the IAAF’s scheme to get people interested in athletics. It is called the Heritage Collection and is a display of old athletics artefacts, medals, programmes, papers, odd bits of kit from out of the attic, Stacy Dragila’s vest and Jason Gardener’s spikes.The idea, Lord Coe explained, was to win “long-term loyalty of young fans” by showing the “historic context” of the sport. Coe spoke about taking the display on the road but ultimately the International Association of Athletics Associations wants to put it all in a...

Jul 23, 2017

Icarus film finds more than Greek tragedy in Russia doping scandal | Sean Ingle

Bryan Fogel’s docu-thriller dissects Russia’s drug-driven corruption of Olympics and challenges belief in world athletics that anti-doping drives are winningOf all the remarkable scenes in Icarus, a new docu-thriller that forensically carries out a portmortem on how Russia corrupted the London 2012 Olympics and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi through the eyes of its chief protagonist, one moment lingers longest – the reaction of leading anti-doping figures when the film’s director, Bryan Fogel, hits them with the grand reveal.“This is the spreadsheet of every single Russian athlete on the state‑mandated protocol,” he tells them at a meeting in Los Angeles in May last year. “What every single athlete was taking in London, including their sample numbers and collection.” Related:...