LAGOS – Former British track and field star, Sebastian Coe, says he plans to tour Africa in 2015 to explore ways he can extend technical assistance to promote athletics in Africa.
“I am already working on my programme which I intend to undertake early in the new year.’’
Coe, the Vice President of the International Association of Athletic Federation (IAAF), was speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria via telephone from his London base.
“The continent’s athletes have made tremendous forays in the middle and long distances but may need help to improve in the shorter sprints and other areas of the sport.
“I have had extensive discussions with some heads of the sport from various African countries at the Marrakech Athletic Championship.
“Many of them have bared their minds about the sort of assistance they will require to support the growth of the sport in the areas.
“On my own, I have figured out that the continent has many talented sportsmen and women who will need to compete at the highest levels in the continent, but need infrastructure and sponsorship to retain their atheles at home,”
Coe, one of the candidates tipped to take over as the IAAF President, said.he would work hard to see how he could secure sponsors to support further growth and development of athletics in the continent.
He said he would also back the staging of a World Athletics Championship on the African soil. [eap_ad_2] Senegalese Lamine Diack, the current President of the IAAF, will step down next year after attaining 80, a mandatory retirement age in international sport.
Coe, who was born on Sept. 29, 1956, is currently aged 58 and he is often referred to as `Seb Coe or Lord Coe. He is also a politician.
As a middle-distance runner, Coe won four Olympic medals, including the 1,500 metres gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984.
During his active days on the tracks, he set eight outdoor and three indoor world records in middle-distance track events, including, in 1979, setting three world records in the space of 41 days.
The world record he set in the 800 metres in 1981 remained unbroken until 1997.
Coe’s rivalries with fellow Britons Steve Ovett and Steve Cram dominated middle-distance racing for much of the 1980s.
Following Coe’s retirement from athletics, he became a member of parliament for the Conservative Party from 1992 to 1997 and became a Life Peer on May 16, 2000.
He headed the successful London bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics and became chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games.
In 2007, he was elected a Vice President of the IAAF. He was re-elected on Aug. 25, 2011 for another four-year term. (NAN) [eap_ad_3]