IOC move on election rules puts up legal hurdles to Coe running for top Olympic job

GENEVA — In a move by the IOC that apparently could block Sebastian Coe as an expected presidential candidate, the Olympic governing body has clarified its complex election rules before a deadline Sunday to enter the race.

A letter was published Wednesday after being sent by the International Olympic Committee’s ethics commission to the 111 members, including Coe and several more likely candidates in the contest to succeed Thomas Bach next year.

Details in the two-page letter dated Monday specified reasons why the likes of Coe, the 67-year-old president of track governing body World Athletics, would seem unable to complete a full first IOC mandate of eight years without at least getting special exemptions to remain a member of the Olympic body.

The winning candidate must be a member of the IOC on election day, scheduled for March in Greece, “and during the entire duration of their term as IOC President,” the letter stated.

Coe's IOC membership is conditional on being president of World Athletics, a role he must leave in 2027 on completing the maximum 12 years in office.

Another expected candidate, IOC vice president Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., who turns 65 in November, also could have legal roadblocks with the standard age limit of 70 for members defined in the Olympic Charter rules book.

Members turning 70 can be extended only once for four more years, though such an approval for Coe by the IOC executive board also would still expire during a 2025-33 presidency.

The charter “makes no exceptions for the president, who is an IOC member under the same conditions as all the other members,” stated ethics commission chairman Ban Ki Moon, the former United Nations secretary general, who signed the Sept. 9 letter.

The letter of intended clarification added to the complexity of an election that is one of the quirkiest in world sports. Candidates cannot publish campaign videos, nor organize public meetings or take part in public debates.

The candidates must come from the IOC membership that comprises a maximum of 115 invited members including royalty from the Middle East and Europe, a current head of state — the Emir of Qatar — former diplomats and lawmakers, industrialists, and leaders of sports bodies and athletes.

Those voters cannot publicly endorse their pick, according to guidelines published last month by the IOC, which plans to publish the candidate list on Monday.

The IOC top job ideally calls for deep knowledge of managing sports, understanding athletes’ needs and nimble skills in global politics. The president oversees an organization that earns billions of dollars in revenue from broadcasting and sponsor deals for the Olympic Games and employs hundreds of staff in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Coe is widely considered a most qualified candidate. A two-time Olympic champion in the 1,500-meters, he was later an elected lawmaker in Britain, led the 2012 London Olympics organizing committee and has presided at World Athletics for nine years.

The legal hurdles are stacking up just days before the IOC-set deadline for candidates to send a letter of intent to Bach, who will leave as president next year after reaching his 12-year term limit.

Kirsty Coventry, an Olympic gold medalist swimmer who is sports minister of Zimbabwe, and David Lappartient, the French president of cycling’s governing body, have seemed to have support from Bach in recent years.

Bach placed Lappartient to oversee a long-term project with Saudi Arabia, hosting the Esports Olympic Games, that was sealed in Paris.

Other candidates could include two of the four IOC vice presidents — Nicole Hoevertsz of Aruba and Spaniard Samaranch, whose father was IOC president for 21 years until leaving in 2001.

Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan is a potential candidate who could be the first president in the IOC's 130-year history from Asia or Africa.

However, Coe’s strong positions in sports politics — against Russia on state-backed doping and the invasion of Ukraine, plus awarding $50,000 cash prizes for Paris Olympics gold medals from track’s share of Olympic revenues — have clashed with the IOC and leaders of other sports bodies.

The letter signed by Ban also suggested a conflict of interest between holding two presidential roles, of the IOC and a sports governing body. That applies to Coe, Lappartient and Morinari Watanabe, the Japanese president of the International Gymnastics Federation.

This conflict could be resolved, the letter said, by having a vote after the IOC presidential election “for a change of membership status.”

Britain, however, no longer has a quota space for another IOC member elected as an individual. That's because Hugh Robertson, the government’s Olympics minister at the time of the 2012 Summer Games, was elected in Paris in July.

The IOC needs a new president only because Bach said in Paris last month he would not seek to stay on by changing the statutory maximum of 12 years for the position.

The IOC has had nine presidents in its history. All have been men and none were from Africa, Asia or Latin America.

The only woman ever to stand as a candidate was Anita DeFrantz, a former Olympic rower from the United States. She was eliminated in the first round of voting of a five-candidate election in 2001 won by Jacques Rogge, a sailor and surgeon from Belgium who went on to serve the full 12 years.

Key to this campaign will be a closed-door meeting for candidates to address voters in January in Lausanne.