MPs demand clarity on Lord Coe’s awareness of corruption at the IAAF
SEBASTIAN COE faces fresh questions about what he knew of corruption within athletics before his election as president of the sport’s governing body, the IAAF, after MPs heard evidence that “undermined” his claims of ignorance.
Lord Coe told the Culture, Media and Sport select committee in December 2015 that he was unaware of any specific allegations about the extent of Russian doping or that senior IAAF officials were extorting money from Russian athletes to bury positive drug tests until German broadcaster ARD broke the story on December 3, 2014.
But Dave Bedford told the same committee yesterday that he had called and emailed Coe to warn him about the scandal in August 2014 and had then spoken to him about a related matter on November 21, two weeks before the ARD broadcast.
Coe previously told MPs he simply forwarded Bedford’s emails to the IAAF’s new ethics board without reading them properly or opening the attached documents.
However, Bedford, the former London Marathon race director and chairman of the IAAF’s road racing commission, said he was “very surprised and quite disappointed” when he heard Coe say that, adding that while he had not been told by Coe whether or not he read his emails, he was certain he was aware of what they were about.
In summing up his evidence to the committee, Tory MP Nigel Huddleston said it was clear that Bedford’s answers “undermined” Coe’s version of events. Within minutes of the session finishing, committee chairman Damian Collins confirmed that he would be asking Coe to return by the end of this month.