Seb Coe on the Brilliance of Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Grand Slam Track, & the Future of Cross Country

If 2024 was the final full year of the Sebastian Coe era at World Athletics, then it was quite a way to go out, highlighted by an unusually star-studded edition of the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow and one of the best Olympics ever in Paris.

“It’s been a very, very successful year,” Coe said. “As an athletics enthusiast, I would go far as to say in athletics terms, It’s been one for the ages…Glasgow, I was particularly pleased with. Because in an Olympic year, you don’t always get indoor athletes of the quality of Noah Lyles and athletes like that turning out. They did. Josh Kerr [too]. That was one of our most popular editions of the World Championships indoors and the most-watched in the last five editions in Europe.”

Coe, 68, has served as World Athletics president since 2015 and was re-elected to a third (and final) four-year term in 2023. But he is hoping to land a bigger job in 2025: Coe is one of seven candidates vying to replace Thomas Bach when the International Olympic Committee votes for a new president at the IOC Session in Athens in March. He has a strong case. Coe was a two-time Olympic gold medalist during his own career and delivered the immensely popular London Olympics as chairman of the local organizing committee.

At World Athletics, Coe has been willing to make hard choices. He was far tougher on Russia in the wake of its state-sponsored doping scandal than either the IOC or WADA, banning the country for eight years (that ban was lifted in 2023 but Russia remains banned because of its invasion of Ukraine). Coe has also stood up to protect the female category, with World Athletics instituting firm DSD and transgender guidelines under his watch.

Whether those hard choices work for or against Coe in the race for the IOC presidency remains to be seen. If Coe gets the IOC post, senior vice president Ximena Restrepo, the 1992 Olympic 400m bronze medalist for Colombia, would move up to replace Coe as World Athletics president.

Coe did not speak about the looming IOC race in a media teleconference on Monday — he asked that the questions be kept to track & field — but did touch on a number of other topics, including the future of World XC and Olympic cross country, his thoughts on new ventures Grand Slam Track and Athlos, and praise for Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.

Coe on Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s latest world record: “I’ve only seen one performance in an Olympic stadium to rival that”

Of all the incredible races at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, Coe singled out one for special praise: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s 50.37 world record in the 400-meter hurdles final. McLaughlin-Levrone’s 1.50-second margin of victory was easily the largest in the history of the event. Her run was so dominant that her biggest rival Femke Bol — the second-fastest woman in history — wound up fading to third place over the second half of the race simply because she had tried to keep up with SML early on.

It was, Coe believes, one of the most definitive victories in Olympic history.

“Sydney McLaughlin this year was outstanding,” Coe said. “I’ve only seen one performance [in-person] in an Olympic stadium to rival that just in terms of strength of character, physically and mentally, and that was David Rudisha in London winning gun-to-tape.”

Expand the scope to all Olympic races — not just ones he saw in-person — and Coe adds another race to the list.

“If you look at 1500 meters, then for me, the definitive all-time 1500 meters win was Herb Elliott in 1960 in Rome,” Coe said.

In that race, Elliott, the 22-year-old Australian, ran 3:35.6 to break his own world record and win gold by 2.8 seconds over France’s Michel Jazy.

Over the last 20 years, only eight athletes have set a world record in an individual track final at the Olympics. SML and Usain Bolt are the only ones to do it twice.

World records in individual Olympic track finals, 2004-24

Coe on cross country: “It needs help. It needs space.”

Coe has made it clear, on multiple occasions, that he believes there is a place for cross country in the professional running calendar.

“I’m a great adherent of cross country,” Coe said. “I think it’s a really important part of the endurance paradigm.”

The challenge has been figuring out where, exactly, the World Cross Country Championships belong.

“It needs help,” Coe said. “It needs space.”

The meet ran annually in late March until 2011, when it switched to every other year. But, in part due to COVID-19, the schedule has been inconsistent in recent years. The 2023 meet was held in Australia on February 18. The 2024 meet, originally scheduled for Croatia on February 10-11, was reassigned to Serbia on March 30 when it emerged that Croatia was not ready to host (Serbia deserves props for stepping up on short notice, but the course and spectator experience at 2024 World XC were both poor). And the 2026 meet in Tallahassee, Fla., will be on January 10.

World Athletics has been engaged in a constant battle to find a space on the calendar that makes sense for the meet — one that will encourage participation and not overlap with other events like World Indoors (March of even-numbered years) and the World Road Running Championships (now an annual event in the fall). To that end, WA announced that after next year, World XC will be held only in odd-numbered years.

But the reshuffling may not be over yet. WA has also been in discussions with European Athletics to potentially move World XC before Christmas with the hope of encouraging European federations who support Euro XC but not World XC to send teams to both meets. And Coe is also pushing for cross country to be added to the 2030 and 2034 Winter Olympics — something to monitor closely should Coe be elected IOC president. Watch this space.

LRC from April: How To Make World XC Matter

Are new investments in professional track a tipping point for the sport?

Three months ago in Paris, Coe spoke about how he welcomed the idea of Grand Slam Track, viewing it as a good sign for the health of the sport. He reiterated that belief on Monday.

“Those are external investments,” Coe said. “The market is a fairly unforgiving place. They tend not to put money where they don’t think there is a [upward] trajectory or the organization is moving in the right direction. So look, I’m very happy for that…I’ve always, long before Michael [Johnson] came up with this thought or Athlos, I’ve always been encouraging opportunities for people to innovate, come to the table for ideas, and, ideally, activate around fresh investment.”

But Coe said he did not view the extra money coming into the sport as a tipping point — perhaps because there is no guarantee of how long those external investments will continue to flow.

Meanwhile, World Athletics is hard at work on its own attempt to draw in new fans, the World Athletics Ultimate Championship. Last month, WA announced that the inaugural edition, to be held in Budapest in 2026, will not feature events such as the 10,000 meters, steeplechase, shot put, or traditional single-sex relays (there is a mixed 4×100 and mixed 4×400). But Coe said those events will remain at WA’s other championships and it is possible WA will shake up the events for the next Ultimate Championship in 2028.

“I’m unashamed about this: this is an event designed for television,” Coe said. “It’s three hours over three nights. We can’t possibly put all the disciplines — we don’t have every track discipline in there.

“What we’ve tried to do is meld the best events at this moment into the right format. And look, it may be when we come to ’28, there are different disciplines. But the main point here is, there aren’t winners and losers. It’s not like we’re going to suddenly lose those events that are not appearing in Budapest. They’re not going to go from the Europeans or the area championships or national championships or the World Championships or even the Olympic Games.”

Talk about this article on the world famous LRC messageboard / fan forum: Seb Coe said he’s only seen won Olympic run that rivals Sydney’s 50.37. Guess what it was….