Coe re-elected for new term as IAAF chief

Britain’s Sebastian Coe was re-elected unopposed Wednesday as president of the IAAF for a second term following four years dominated by doping and the issue of gender.

The former Olympic and world champion middle-distance runner became head of world athletics’ governing body in 2015 and receives his second mandate just two days before the World Athletics Championships open in Doha.

“I genuinely am very pleased and proud of the way the sport has come together,” said Coe, 62, following his re-election.

“Two-hundred changes, the Athletics Integrity Unit — no sport has a unit in the same space, it’s about malpractice, corruption.

“In making those achievements, I recognise we have had to detour from being able to really focus as hard as I would have liked in the early years around the field of play. We’re now in the position to really genuinely do that.”

Coe, who took over the reins during a period of turmoil in world athletics, was re-elected by unanimous vote of the 203 delegates attending the International Association of Athletics Federations’ Congress in Doha.

Four years ago the IAAF was in chaos as a result of far-reaching corruption allegations.

They included damaging charges of links between outgoing president Lamine Diack, his influential son Papa Massata, and a Russian cover-up of a state-sponsored doping conspiracy.