World Athletics chief Lord Coe says he could be open to the potential for transferring some indoor sports activities from the summer time Olympics to the winter Video games if he turns into the brand new president of the Worldwide Olympic Committee.
Britain’s two-time Olympic 1500m champion revealed his manifesto, exterior on Thursday morning alongside these of the opposite six candidates within the operating to succeed Thomas Bach subsequent 12 months.
“Innovation is crucial, we now have to be open to new concepts,” he informed BBC Sport.
Coe has vowed to shake up the IOC, claiming “an excessive amount of energy is within the arms of too few individuals”.
Describing the election as “the dance I simply could not sit out”, Coe mentioned: “The query I ask myself as a member is – ‘what enter do I and different members have?’
“And the truth of it’s, there is not sufficient. I am undecided we’re benefiting from the extraordinary expertise that sits alongside me. The IOC isn’t a damaged organisation however it may be so a lot better and it wants change.”
In his proposals, Coe reinforces earlier pledges to spice up youth sport, introduce “clear, science-based insurance policies” to shield the feminine class amid persevering with debate in sport over gender eligibility guidelines, and to hearken to athletes.
He additionally says that: “To maintain the Video games we should develop – not simply financially but additionally in attain and relevance. Business companions and broadcasters need modernisation.”
Talking on the Olympic Park in Stratford, Coe – who chaired the organising committee of London 2012 – added: “Local weather change goes to basically make us have to consider the worldwide calendar, the place we take our occasions and the occasions of the 12 months that we take our occasions.
“And a few individuals have even prompt that we would wish to have a look at the steadiness between the winter and summer time Video games.
“You might have venues the place some sports activities are indoors. You might in principle take them into one other time of the 12 months, possibly a winter Video games.
“So these are all of the issues that I might encourage debate to happen on, as a result of solely when we now have that debate can we discard the issues that will not work.
“Solely in collaboration with the winter sports activities and all these organisations on the market. Now we have the Affiliation of Nationwide Olympic Committees. Now we have the summer time federations which can be represented, and a few of that must be a collaborative strategy. However I believe we should always at all times be open to new and recent pondering.”
Final 12 months the IOC mentioned analysis confirmed solely 10 nations will be capable of host snow sports activities by 2040 due to the affect of local weather change, and accepted “a have to adapt the Olympic Winter Video games”.
There are at the moment 4 indoor sports activities on the Winter Olympics: pace skating, determine skating, curling, and ice hockey.
In a controversial transfer, World Athletics launched prize cash for gold medallists at Paris 2024 below Coe’s management.
“Lots of the issues I’ve finished at World Athletics have sparked a debate,” he mentioned.
“That is not one thing I shrink back from. In a world that adjustments each 5 minutes, we now have to be very open to evaluation that does not at all times match comfortably with how we see the world. And we should always embrace that.”
Coe vowed to keep away from a repeat of this summer time’s Olympic boxing controversy when two athletes disqualified from the earlier 12 months’s World Championships for allegedly failing gender eligibility standards – Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting – gained gold medals after being allowed to compete by the IOC. Each have insisted they’re ladies.
“On the feminine class, it was non-negotiable [to include it in the manifesto],” Coe mentioned.
“If you do not have clear insurance policies, you find yourself with the place you bought to in Paris. The comforting factor for me is that it couldn’t have occurred in athletics.”
Underneath Coe, World Athletics has banned transgender ladies from competing within the feminine class at worldwide occasions and toughened the principles over the participation of rivals with variations in intercourse improvement (DSD).