COE’S NIKE LINK JUST KEEPS ON RUNNING...
They name new building after him — two years after he cut all ties
LITTLE more than two years after reluctantly severing his ties with the company, Lord Coe’s connection with Nike is looking as strong as ever.
The Nike Oregon Project remains at the centre of a doping investigation, but earlier this month the sportswear giant announced they would name a new building after the president of the IAAF on the same Nike Campus where Alberto Salazar continues to coach athletes.
In November 2015, Coe terminated his agreement as a £100,000-a-year ambassador for Nike in the face of accusations that a conflict of interest existed over the controversial award of the 2021 athletics World Championships to Eugene, Oregon. While Coe denied any conflict, insisting he ‘did not lobby anyone’, a BBC investigation revealed evidence of Coe discussing the Eugene bid with a Nike executive when he was already serving as an IAAF vice-president.
Coe dismissed the focus on his ties with Nike as media ‘noise’, but at a time when the sport’s governing body were reeling from allegations of corruption linked to the Russian doping crisis, he concluded it was prudent to end what he claimed was a 38-year association with the company.
He spent a chunk of his career running in Diadora shoes but he did win both his Olympic gold medals in Nike spikes.
In 2015, Coe also gave his public support to Salazar, who denies any wrongdoing but remains the focus of a United States AntiDoping Agency investigation.
At the time, Salazar was Sir Mo Farah’s coach and, while the British distance star is now in the process of moving his family back to the UK, the Nike Oregon Project still boasts the company’s global headquarters in Beaverton as its base.
A building is named in Salazar’s honour — there was once a Lance Armstrong building, too — and now Coe’s name has been attached to one of four buildings on the 400-acre site. The new Serena Williams building, due to open in 2019, will be the biggest structure, covering a million square feet.
Coe has made the leap from a parking space in his name to a six-storey glass office building boasting 475,000 square feet.
Coe has implemented significant change since taking charge at the IAAF, and certainly deserves credit for imposing a ban on Russian athletes.
But key figures in the sport have reacted with surprise to the Nike news, with one senior official noting the ‘fresh allegations around Justin Gatlin (a Nike athlete despite twice being convicted of doping) this week’.
A spokesperson for Coe said the decision to name the building in his honour was not a ‘reconnection’ and that Nike are ‘just recognising a great athlete’.