World Athletics President Sebastian Coe spoke this week, during his annual media call, about the future direction of the sport of athletics amid concerns and frustrations within the sport.
For example, Grand Slam Track’s failure. The series of meetings that launched in 2025 filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and has lit a storm in the media, social media and chat forums.
Coe also spoke about the frustration of doping and the fact that the organization and the Athletics Integrity Unit are not capable of preventing doping or removing results.
While he did not address Ruth Chepngetich’s marathon world record from Chicago 2024 at 2:09:56, he explicitly spoke about not being able to remove records unless the athlete was proven to have doped during the time of performance.
Finally, Coe referenced the next installment of the World Athletics’ world championships meet. It shall be shorter, faster and organized with flow and no downtime.
On the championships against the Grand Slam Track debacle
“There is a responsibility to make sure that you’ve got a solid business plan: a plan A and a bulletproof plan B.
“You’ve got to execute really well, and if you don’t, then the risk is always going to be that the group you most want to take with you, the athletes, are put at risk.
“There’s no guarantee, but my goodness, we will do everything we possibly can to make sure that we deliver something that moves the sport in the right direction.”
“But it has to be suffused in a realistic proposition that you have stuff that is fireproof. It’s got to be sustainable.”
“I’d like to think it’s a glimpse of the future,” Coe said. “We still have World Championships, they’re sacrosanct, but this new format matters. And it’s not just because of the $10 million prize pot, but that is important. We really do want something that reads all-action and no filler here. It’s three hours a night over three nights.”
Doping
Coe publicly addressed the legal constraints preventing records from being altered despite related anti-doping sanctions. He was direct in explaining why his hands are tied. “I share the frustration, but I’m not a lawyer.” This was where he referenced the legal framework that governs decisions.
He added that it was frustrating to not be able to do anything about an obviously dirty performance. “If you don’t have that, it is extremely difficult to extrapolate to other events,” emphasizing that the issue is not a lack of political will but the weight of a legal system that conditions any retrospective ruling.
While the legalese protects the athlete, the protections are weighted too heavily in their favour.
This also limits the work of the AIU. “It does everything it possibly can, but it also has to operate within legal constraints, however frustrating that is.”
Tallahassee, Worlds and the 2030 Commonwealth Games
Coe said he felt the 2025 Tokyo World Athletics Championships were “our most successful World Championships.” He cited that 84 countries had at least one finalist.
The meet sold out seven of the nine nights. The total attendance of over 619,000 was behind only Beijing 2015 and London 2017.
In 2026, World Athletics will stage its first World Ultimate Championships in Budapest, even though the National Athletics Centre was reduced in capacity from 36,000 to 14,000. WA still expects support in Budapest, but was clear that the Ultimate Champs is a made-for-TV event aimed at eliminating downtime.
Coe described India as a market with “untapped potential,” saying the 2030 Commonwealth Games in Ahmedabad could play a transformative role in promoting the sport of athletics in the country.
Coe confirmed that the mixed 4x400m relay and the mile race — both added to the program for the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow — will continue as permanent fixtures at the 2030 edition as well. The mile race, last contested at the Games in 1966, will replace the 1500m event in Glasgow before carrying over to Ahmedabad.
Coe, of course, did not miss an opportunity to discuss the World Cross Country Championships added to the Winter Olympic Games. There is hope for it.
“The new president is clear they want to put everything on the table at the moment,” Coe told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday. “It’s a very different atmosphere. It’s very much about how we can improve together rather than we’ll tell you how to do it. She’s blown some oxygen into the organization.”
