Corruption, Gender, and the Geopolitics of Sport | Seb Coe

Will doping ever be defeated in sport? What was it like going from world class runner to government whip? Are the Tories finished in Britain?

In the first Leading episode of 2024, Rory and Alastair are joined by Seb Coe to discuss all this and more.

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Welcome to the restus politics leading with me Rory Stewart and me alist Campbell and aliser you’re going to do our introduction today I think I have to because we’re talking about somebody who’s well known as a sportsman and sport is not really Rory’s Forte but this is a sportsman who having

Been possibly many would say the greatest British athlete of all time given how many Olympic in world I sense I know the direction this is already travel no it’s fine I’m absolutely saying it’s as it is possibly the most graceful beautiful Runner we’ve ever produced winner of multiple Olympic

Goals and then a successful pretty successful businessman and then had a period as a politician and then discovered a whole new career in as I guess we call it as a sports politician key figure in landing the Olympic Games for London 2012 you were there right the

Whole way through the lot now the head of world Athletics top dog in the sport and to said possibly looking to try to become the head of the ioc and run the Olympics as well so you’ve had quite a lot of careers so I think my first question is

If you take those all those different careers sport business Parliament and politics and sports politics order them in terms of the the greatness that they’ve given to your life do you know I’m not sure I can do that because I don’t tend to look at it in that way I’ve never been somebody

That sat there going well this is what my CV should look like I’ve been very lucky I recognize that that I’ve tended to do things that have interested me but if you wanted to meld all those elements onto a CV uh and I wouldn’t have even seen it

Until it came together and that was really I guess over the Olympic uh bid and then the delivery being in sport and having competed in the Olympic Games was helpful because I understood the landscape and the language then having spent a good time in sports politics and

Cutting my teeth in a an in an Olympic movement headed up by Samaran and then doing a stint modestly it has to be said as a member of Parliament and for a short period of time uh a government whip which comes out in your book so wonderfully I like

To think that one of the things I think that I did bring some skill to in the Olympic Games it was an amazing team of people I will probably never I’ve never worked with and I will probably never work again with a group of such smart enlightened

Driven Visionary people headed up I have to say by our mutual friend Tessa who was seismic in again for listen is Tessa J was Tessa J who was the Secretary of State at dcms um she was the Secretary of State when uh she famously persuaded your friends the prime

Minister at the time to bid for the games and and this was not a you know Grand PR in the UK at that time was not can we can we cut into that for a second so um why why was it not an obvious thing for people to do why did Tess have

To persuade people to bid for the Olympic Games I think if the cabinet had been a vote as opposed to a decision that was taken following discussion it would have been a no and what why was that I think they thought is expensive would end up being way more expensive than we

Promised and it was a bit of distraction from all the other stuff I think there was a deeper pathology if you don’t mind me saying in the leadup to people like me standing up and saying yes we’re we’re going to build an old a new city

Inside an old city in seven years we’re going to regenerate a parcel of land in East London that had B past any Economic Development criminally actually for far too long that we were going to build venues that London and never had we were going to pull the most complicated piece of

Project management frankly known to man under normal circumstances in any City and then the next question you would get was what about the Millennium Dome what about Wembley what about the cost overruns on the BBC the Scottish Parliament so it was it was the moment where all those things had happened and

They very this wasn’t a backdrop of unalo joy and there was a deadline attached to there was a deadline attached to it which actually mercifully was absolutely critical but I think if I’d been sitting there and I’d been Tony Blair or whoever uh you know was in senior

Positions in in the government at the time I would have sat there and gone well hang on a minute we we don’t obviously see to be doing this this very well and the great thing that I think came out of that was that people did actually see beyond that and we didn’t

Actually need our reputation rescuing because we were doing that actually far better than people thought but I do think it gave people comfort and confidence to go out again and think actually big projects in the UK are not not Beyond us and I think there was there was an element of of of

Nervousness that was just expressed in understandable political motivations of course back again now with HS 2 and hinley points and all these kind of things where again we’re worrying that we don’t know how to do infrastructure so maybe we need another Olympic Games immed did you know something Rory there was a really

Really insightful moment for me I was in Japan and I was bidding and I sat down with a very seasoned uh Sports leader in Japan guy had been really around for a long time very cultivated very smart and he was talking to me about the games and we

Were about a year no we weren’t bidding we were about a year and a bit out from the games and he and he I was taking him through the complexity of it and all the things that we’ve just sort of touched upon and he looked at me he said why are

You nervous and I said well you know and I started to go through the Litany of all the things that you know and he went he said Brit you are strange people in Britain he said you you are running large parts of the global economy he said most of my colleagues and friends

Have actually been educated at some stage in Britain their children want to be in Britain if they don’t want to be educated there they want to start their career there if they don’t want to do that they want to come across to your theaters your Club you do pageantry you

Do Wimbledon you do the Grand National you do Cup finals he said you know what are you worried about and and it was interesting I suddenly realized that all the self-doubt we we have a monstrous ability in the UK to actually doubt our own ability and yet this there was this

Guy sitting in in Tokyo into his early 70s who was looking at me thinking why are you worried about this this is this is going to be okay sort of a few minutes into this interview I’m and I’ve known you for a long long time I find it really

Weird that you don’t immediately want to talk about being an athlete I think to have done what you did as an athlete I don’t think you can ever top that and I wonder if your life’s just been a kind of NeverEnding struggle to maybe try just coming is

That not because you weren’t an athlete and you’ve done all the stuff in politics you have a massive Envy of athletes you totally totally are you sure that if you’d been a a great Runner and then G on to do what You’ done you’d always see the running as better than

The other stuff I think if I’d have done what Seb did as an athlete I’d think that’s pretty much the best I’m ever going to do and I always feel sorry for these footballers who become pundits and stuff because this I feel they’re trying to replace it

But I’m a probably a slightly odd Cove here I knew I wanted to be involved in politics before I ever thought that I would be a successful athlete it’s a desperate admission but I I that’s what I wanted to do I wasn’t actually sure whether I wanted to be party political I

Thought for a long time about maybe writing uh being a political writer I thought about the Civil Service uh at some point and politics has always fascinated me and I came from a I came from a political household but not a party political household D your dad was

Labor oh my dad was old fashion I mean was old labor yeah my mother wasal old liberal Joe Gund um and but I have Indian Heritage as well so my grandfather was Indian and the political side of the family is actually Indian my uncle was a High Commissioner

In Bangladesh and actually did a stint over here and then at the United Nations just on on that side because it’s a fascinating part of your whole story that I keep trying to get my head around so you’ve got these very kind of grand Indian relatives quite kind of well-known prestigious Indian relatives

Then you went on this show which was looking you DNA and you found out that you had all these quite quite Grand ancesters famous painters governor general but at the same time you also have a very kind of working class identity how do these different bit because my father was working class my

Father was born in East London in one room on the Cambridge Heath Road it’s actually always interesting that that was the part I mean I never even thought about it but of course that was the the the world he was born into was the world that 70 years later 80 years later I’m

Sort of trying to put some regeneration yeah and your mother’s family on the other hand both on her mother’s side and her father’s side were from a quite different background you’re very different so my great grandfather was her her grandfather was a well-known uh Portrait Painter member

Of the royal academ his brother they were Irish so his brother was uh um a a very well-known painter of animals and his fa their father was the first uh president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin and how did they meet do you know something Rory that is

The question that nobody’s really been able to answer uh and it it is a it’s a mystery why well because nobody really knows well they knew they they knew but they sort of met at a party my dad was 13 14 years older than my mom he’d been

Married before I had a half sister and his idea of a first date with my mother who actually subsequent to the first date didn’t speak to him for four months was to stick her on the back of a motorbike and take a along along the old Portsmouth Road at about 100 miles an

Hour I mean they were they were an interesting must it’s interesting couple of my my mother was an actress so she was rather trained and did restoration comedy in in London theaters and Birmingham and wer rap if I can stay on the the sporting career which clearly

Neither of you want to talk about as much as I do but your relationship with your dad was endlessly fascinating like to every people wrote books about your relationship with your dad because he became your coach even though he wasn’t as it were an Athletics coach he wasn’t even from an Athletics background

Cycling he he yeah he understood the endurance for sure but but he he he wasn’t and do you think part of his strength was the ability to come in and just not accept any conventional wisdoms but that was him and I think that’s quintessentially the essence of engineering you sort of have this

Fascination about seeing something and then wanting to take it apart and putting it back together again you have to un you can only understand my father from his wartime experience he was a 19-year-old in the Merchant Marine he was sailing for the blue funnel line out of the port of

London and get sunk in the and the Atlantic is in the water for an improbable length of time gets picked up by a German battleship because kids of his generation learned German uh and he got a scholarship to Westminster from East London he didn’t like Westminster so he ended up with

Emanuel school and so because he spoke German they put him in the ship’s kitchen and he was at sea for three months on on this Battleship and then they they he landed in lell which was um German occupied and to cut a long story short in France in France yeah there

Were only about five of them made it off the boat and he jumped off the train that was heading from L Rell to a prisoner of war camp in Hamburg and he walked he slept by day walked through through France by night and he was walking with the Canadian who sort of

Chronicled this and they decided they had a disc an argument about which way to go at one point and the Canadian thought he wanted to try and get to the coast of marsill and my father wasn’t sure whether it was occupied or not and decided to walk through the Pyrenees got through and

Then got promptly arrested for not having any papers and the worst part of his War he openly would admit to you was actually being incarcerated in one of the worst camps in in Spain at Camp called Miranda which was infamous Ju Just just on that one because other

People did escapes through the Pyrenees into Spain and then got safely to Britain but he ended up in a camp with Spanish Republicans and other opponents of Spanish government so what was going on there what he didn’t have any papers and and they just wouldn’t believe that

He was a British British no and he did six months later about after about six months of pretty pretty unpleasant a pretty unpleasant time um he was then brought home but my grandmother throughout all that I think there was some Memorial at the Port of London for those that gone

Down on the it was the ad Huff was the boat and she refused to go she said I’m not going I know he’s alive and they all went and they sort of said look you you know it’s been 8 10 12 weeks and we’ve got the letter she

Didn’t know he’ll turn up good for her year later he walked in was he was he very tough on you do you think yes and no um he was never tougher on me than I was on myself right in fact interestingly some of the the Tabloid

Stuff was it was a sort of sengar portrayal and it was much more nuanced than that and in fact just tell us about the portrayals before you tell us the Nuance so the cliche the portray well that you know it was the classic parent living through their children but

Actually the the great thing he brought to it was was balance and my mother was a massive influence in that because she was absolutely insistent that my life was not simply running about running so you know which she’d take me to the Hal Orchestra in Sheffield on her my father

Was also actually far more balanced and and an in incredibly good artist I mean he could paint he was self-taught but he was brutal with you if you weren’t performing to your best yeah but he was never more brutal with me than I was on myself and actually the great thing he

Brought which is actually overlooked in in the quality of a coach is that his view was always less was more in Los Angeles a few days before I went out to defend my title he came in he didn’t he came from London he didn’t actually stay with me the whole time watched me

Running on a track I at the training session was something like 6X 400 MERS with a couple of minutes recovery and after about three went I’ve seen enough you know off you go and some nights he would sense that he would sense that I was you know when I was coming through

The sport I was a little bit nervous he take me to the pub in the evening and say have a pine so he was much more relaxed but he didn’t suffer fools and he really graded against the authorities Authority he and the media he yeah I mean probably more the Blazer Brigade

And the authorities it was everything that he hated I’m not saying he was a class Warrior but he really he did dislike being told what to do by people he thought didn’t Merit their position and weren’t that smart so just to give us a sense of what kind of training you need

To do in your teens to be an athlete of your stature and quality how many hours a day you training what are you actually doing just give us a sense of that along alongside your normal school work what are you actually doing to get into the

Deepity of school work um well how would I put it I joined an Athletics Club when I was 11 so from that point on I was training probably um Tuesday nights Thursday nights Sunday by the time I was 14 I was training every day and by the time I was

16 I was probably training twice a day and that’s how many hours give us a sense what you’re doing it’s difficult to quantify hours because you could do a training session that might take you 30 minutes and would render you absolutely speechless and physically inactive for the rest of

The day there are training sessions I’ve done particularly in the weights room there were training sessions I would do there where I would have to sit in the car for probably 3/4 of an hour before I could even unclench my hands to be able to hold the steering wheel or even feel

Comfortable about controlling the clutch or whatever it was yeah you you worked really hard mileage was tough so my morning runs were probably 10 miles um training again at lunchtime and and you’re you’re you’re running 10 miles in order to be able to run 800 M or 1500 M

Yeah because yes you you need that endurance background and that’s that’s effectively what you do so I mean the the theory really is you build the base which is your your distance work which builds your sorry we’re going to get technical here but it builds your V2 Max your ability to shift

Oxygen um and then there’s the speed endurance component that is really aimed at replicating the fact that in an 800 MERS at world record pace you’re effectively running at 20 21 miles an hour the whole way you can only probably absorb physiologically about 20% of the oxygen that you need and when

Your mind is when you’re actually at the most critical point in the race and you’re trying to think straight and the physiology is collapsing all around you that’s where you need the speed endurance so the speed endurance is really to replicate and be 10 times worse than anything you

Confront uh on the track last question before I go back to Alice because he understands this much better than I do but um give us a sense of how it works at that kind of distance and whether you can stretch up to much longer distances or stretch down to much shorter

Distances because great question yeah great question um and and I think it’s as much about mentality is anything I tried a 5,000 MERS once I ran it in the the Yorkshire championships in barnesley mhm and I knew that this wasn’t really my event because I really wasn’t enjoying

It you know two laps of the track 800 M hard as it is it’s done and you’re out three and 3/4 laps of the 1500 M four for the mile obviously and I got into this and I’m thinking why am I doing it and I I think my borderman disinterest

Permeated the mining community that had bothered to turn up and probably pay good money and halfway down the back straight you didn’t drop out no halfway down the back stet clear of the field and and coasting I suddenly felt well it was it was the contents of

About half a pint of beer thrown at me with the immortal words get a [ __ ] move on so 50 so the 5,000 meters in the yorshire Championships was my one and only so to come back to your question it’s a good one I don’t think I mean we

We we often talk about you picking a sport I think your sport picks you I think your sport makes a judgment about your mentality whether you’re a team you know whether you want to be in a team whether you want to be individual whether you know I loved I I was

Fascinated by your uh autobiography Politics on the edge yeah and and because I absolutely share with you the Adoration of landscape your long walks in the the Lake District for me were replicated in my runs in another part of you know God’s country the Peak District but the ability to actually be

Comfortable in your own space and you know there are some people that just don’t like that they want to be involved in a team event my kids all love team sports they didn’t really want to be in solitary confinement in a sport which athlet you relay teams come together and

You travel as a team but it’s a very no no you’re on your own you’re on your own on own and also you are back back in those days you it was you you were sort of treated partly by the media but by the public you and oette was like kind

Of Arie Frasier it was this heavyweight contest that was kind of happening all the time you were either for Co or you were for over now you’ve talked endlessly about the you know the the Rivalry between you on the track but just just give me a sense of your

Relationship now off the track sorry just for listeners who don’t know right the these were the two dominant stars and you were chasing each other at 800 and 1500 and beating each other in those races and critical races yeah yeah he was he was a year or too older than me

And precocious talent I mean when I was trundling around Yorkshire cross country courses this guy was silver medal in the European championships in 1974 I mean he was out an outstand probably the most naturally talented athlete I ever competed against no no question about that and I didn’t really know him we came

From very diff not only different parts of the country but we came from very different um elements of the sport Steve was based in Brighton he was a sort of 200 meter 400 meter Runner but he could run half marathons I came from what was the old Harrier

Tradition which was cross country and track was something that happened between the end of the cross country season and the start of the road I mean our great Mutual mate Brendan Foster said it didn’t really matter what he’d won on the track when he won the national cross country title then people

Started to recognize in the north of England that he was a great athlete so we both came from very different sides and elements of the sport we came from very different just a very very different parts of the country as well and that landscape and geography I think has a

Massive impact on who you are and how you think and so you know our F our paths first crossed in an English schools cross country Championship I think he finished second I finished ninth he was running for Sussex of Yorkshire schools our pars then didn’t cross again until

1978 when he stuffed me in the 800 meters in Prague my first European championship and then our paths crossed again massively in in in the Moscow games with when you’re in the kind of you know about to go on the track and you wouldn’t talk you wouldn’t there was

No connection no on the on the flight going over to Moscow I had arrived late and I sort of got onto the plane the British team were all in their Hep withth suits I remember I walked down the the plane and I’m thinking please no and somebody in the British Olympic

Association obviously got a good sense of humor was the only vacant seat was next to Steve we hadn’t spoke I mean we didn’t even really know each other although we were has the sport changed I mean nowadays you would have been presumably training together quite a lot

In similar camps in the runup to the Olympics as no no you didn’t I mean the basis of Athletics in my generation was very much club-based right so Steve’s training Partners were all from his Club in Brighton my training partners because by that point I’d sort of started I’d moved

To London right I was at luer University so I had training Partners there then I moved to London joined Harring Athletic Club so all my training Partners were my clubmates so what did you talk about in the plane we didn’t because no no we didn’t because S one of the UK Athletics

Officials realized this was not you know an ideal so they sort of shuffled the pack around and we ended up sitting in in different in different seats and I I don’t think I saw him until the race the races where we and we traveled down in

In separate cars and got to the track and in under separate circumstances now obviously we called the rest of politics so I want to fast forward to you little so having been an incredible athletic Legend you entered the House of Commons elected as a member of parliament 1992

This is the last five years the John Major government yes timing is everything timing is everything and you’re coming to the House of Commons where presumably not that many MPS had the name recognition that you had or the success that you’d had in your past suppose it was Ming Campbell maybe had

Been a been a runner well there been a few I mean Ming actually uh Athletics had been well represented in the House of Commons because of course Chris chataway was Postmaster General World 5,000 meter and a commonwealth Empire games Champion um so yeah it was an interesting experience I mean the whole

Process of politics is completely bizarre I went to see the candidates it was Cesar Parkinson was chair of the candidates and he had an old roller de on his deck and he pulled out and he said you can try this one I just got on the candidates list you know you you

Probably did the same thing that the the weekend and slow where you know yeah can you write and pick up a knife and fork it’s that sort of thing and I went to see CES and i’ know I’d known CES for a long time CES was actually a good

Talented athlete and he said look look at this one it’s fouth and Campbell and he said they’ll never he said don’t worry he said you won’t get elected then they they’ve never vot they won’t vote for anybody out of the county but it’s it’ll you you can cut your teeth on this and

So I applied I got a letter back if inviting me to an in to an interview on a Sunday morning in September and I had to pick up the phone to the chair of the association so I really I’m really sorry but I can’t make that and she said well

What would be so important that you can’t make that I said well I’m running in the World Cup Final in Barcelona and she sort of you could hear it sort of groaning on the phone at the end and they she gave me an interview the following weekend at 9:00 in the morning

On a Sunday in the fouth hotel I didn’t actually make as my agent subsequently told me I didn’t actually make the 30 the long list of 36 and it was only apparently two grandmothers in the constituency party that said look bring him down because we’ quite like to get autographs for our

Kids so that was a moment of cander from my agent who we both had a few pints in the middle of the 92 election campaign so it was it was an odd I mean I loved being in in formal it was independent it was a great good streak of Yorkshire

Down there as well where sort of don’t much like being told what to do and it was a fascinating period but you know you guys were Untouchable in 97 let’s just so so you came in you had this big name yeah done some pretty interesting things it’s a disadvantage yeah yes I

Do um and actually interestingly if I’d been a little harder nosed about it I probably because I wasn’t an Insider I was Absol and because of that particular thought that well you know you know he’s only doing this because you know he’s wants to maintain a high-profile and politics as a sort of

Secondary thought it wasn’t was the first thing I wanted to do and it was it was I I I probably if I’d been a bit cynical about it would have gone for a safe seat but I didn’t want anybody to I wanted a marginal seat that if I won I

Won off my own backat not because I’d been parachuted into Ken give us your favorite stat about 1997 yes at the end of a pretty traumatic now I was I had the smallest swing against me in my constituency than any conservative constituency on the night well done sir little

Consolation well it was you guy you put you put EMILY’s List together I mean I when my before you get back to your loss you concentrate on your time in Parliament for so you’re right presumably I’m still dealing with my I’m trying not to take it in the land of

Arthurian legend in the land of arthan Legend I honestly thought like most people in politics you know at some point your time’s going to be up I just didn’t think one ter it would no I didn’t think I’d be taken out by a woman from isling called candy thank you

Aliser for putting her in there um so so just to continue you must have thought I’m bringing a certain amount of experience I’ve seen quite a lot of the world I’m older than many MPS coming in presumably you would have liked to be a minister quite quickly and in the modern

World you would have been I mean Rishi sunak was a minister within a year he’s you know prime minister within five years and so were you sitting there thinking when are they actually going to give me something to get my teeth into not really and actually the one thing I

Re recognized and it was probably from the athletic background and you you entered politics at a rather unusual and not you know it was an outlier time the 97 election defeat had a massive impact not just on a change of government it took out one even two generations so people got Advanced far

Quicker so when I went into parliament in ’92 you didn’t not expect to you know if you were making sort of semi decent progress you were probably a PPS after a year and a half which I was I then did a year doing that there was a resignation

Or a sacking I can’t remember there was a shuffle I ended up in the Whip’s office and then for a period ended up also as Michael hessle times PPS when he became Deputy PM so that was actually at that stage that was seen as well as reasonable progress and then probably if

I’d stay you know if i’ survived and the next five years you’d have probably made it to Junior or you know if you were doing okay probably shadow emo J shadow no well I wasn’t I I didn’t want to stay no no I I’m not very good in the

Rearview mirrror so I’d made a judgment that night when I lost the seat that I really couldn’t bring myself to to you like you liked it enough to I did I to go back and work for William a yeah and that was that was slightly secutus

As well because um it was Alan Duncan that came to me and said who do you think should be the next party leader he expecting you to say you Alan yeah probably Yes actually yes I that did bypass me at the time um and I think um and I said to him well

The I think there are two very different questions here who who should it be and who probably will get it and he said well who do you think it should be I said well if you’re thinking longterm and I would I’d go for somebody like William hay and I knew William a little

Bit he was a ROM boy of Sheffield our paths cross not politically but you know was we were often on the same programs at the same you know calendar and Yorkshire television and so I ended up I actually got asked to introduce him at a one of the election rallies I think they

Were holding it up in Coventry and then I I did a little bit more and went in there into the campaign team because of my background as a whip with James Abbas not actually he went on to become Williams Chief Whip and you know what an election is like everybody

Lies uh and we looked at the numbers and everybody was thinking that you know they got so many votes and James and I looked at it and went you they saying well so and so is going to support him we going not in a million years it doesn’t matter what they’ve said you

Know I remember him in the whs office he used to lie then I mean so you so I ended up doing that and then at the end of it I said right I’m going off to do you know what I was happily going back to do and I ended up

Then I ended up as William’s Deputy Chief of Staff then William said look could you do a few days because we when you leave Government after 18 years there is no structure for opposition we went into your old offices only to re realize you’d never been in there

Because you ran the whole thing out of Milbank Towers no there was a clapped out fax machine telephones that led nowhere yeah we took the obviously you took the lines out it was pretty clear that you had never been in there and suddenly so my first role there was just

To sort of connect things and then I agreed to do two days and then of course classically compromised on seven days a week for for the next four years and just give Rory and all Tories a sense of what it’s like being up against a formidable labor government setep it

It’s not whether it’s a formidable labor government and at that point it was I I absolutely concede that you know you were all absolutely the top of of your game your Chancellor was Untouchable Tony was Teflon you know you’d got good people coming through and look the British electorate rarely make make bad

Judgments brex it well I think a general election and a referendum are two entirely different things I thoroughly disapprove of referendum I really do that’s not that’s the abrogation of of of political responsibility doing that but it was pretty clear to me that you know we were not

John Major was a thoroughly decent and a good guy and actually as the weeks pass you realize actually how good he was but there was you know we weren’t a good government the electorate got it right it was time for a Jud and where do you think the

Electorate is right now I think they’ve made the same judgment you think the Jo are done I do yes and so when you when you came and you look at people like Imran khanan um did did you think I’m going to be prime minister that’s where

I’m going that was never yours no it really wasn’t and I know there you know I mean I know Michael hessle time famously you know on the the envelope 25 30 40 God he got close 48 prime minister he’d have made a good prime minister no

I I I really didn’t genuinely I didn’t I mean I was ambitious I didn’t want to be a you know PPS I wanted you know I thought I could make a contribution but I think if you come from a background and sport is very objective there’s no

Subjectivity about it in my sport it was a stopwatch it was a photo finish it was you know you win all you lose I think the thing that frustrates people that come into politics from different backgrounds particularly if they’re they come from very objective backgrounds is just the ad hoc nature of

Preferment and the whips off is making judgments about abilities and talents and you mentioned Roy’s book would you say would you would you do you think it’s become more or less dysfunctional or do you think it’s just always been like that I always felt politics was

Functional I but and I always think it’s because this particular government being terrible if I’m being blunt here I think political discourse in the last few years has reached an alltime low and I don’t think that is just the politicians I don’t think that’s just no know it’s

It’s certainly not just the politicians and it’s certainly not UK just just UK I mean I I really enjoyed your book and I enjoyed it on on very many different levels and all the things that you’ve done if I if I was able to trim in any

Particular direction I think it is I I genuinely think politi politics is in large part an honorable profession and I think it is in large part undertaken by people who genuinely do have an ethos of service are wanting to contribute it’s the different direction that you all take to probably come to

Pretty much the same the same landscape I just I I sensed that you your book was a little pessimistic I mean when I think about you know people like let’s truss or Boris Johnson I think they’re sort of do we have to well they’re sort of shock

Jocks I don’t think they’re there for the Grand honorable vision of Public Service I think they’re generating sound bites they’re brilliant attack getting the media attention they’re good at putting out stuff that I don’t know I don’t know and I’ve never really met Liz trust um I would I would slightly trim the

Boris view I I did see Boris in in the Olympic years I saw him then he wasn’t a bad uh he was very good at taking credit for people’s work look he wasn’t a bad mayor and he did actually have some quite good people around him and Neil

Coleman who was um Ken’s OS GRE there I actually persuaded Boris not to be tribal not to get rid of people he thought were you know just sort of Labor Stooges and and Neil stayed on and actually Boris and Neil worked incred incredibly well I’m not look this is not

An apologia for for bis Johnson but I I did see probably some of the better Angels were masked from others but you also surely saw that if that guy becomes prime minister of this country this country is in a bit of trouble I sense that he was probably mildly unsuited to

Becoming a the Prime Minister what about um that talking the Olympics is that when you felt most round peg in round hole because you seem to be you seem to be absolutely Ely loving it at the peak of your game I don’t know I I I don’t think I probably

Think like that was it something that I thought could really make a difference yes what did I wake up every morning thinking actually I have a purpose here the first purpose was was to get the games actually interestingly when your boss asked me to to take on the

Chair if I’m being honest the reason I took it on was I thought I didn’t think we would win no nobody did that time I just didn’t want London to be embarrassed because we’d had three previous bids and I’m a great believer in Regional cities I was brought up in

One but you know we’d had two bids from Manchester that had really barely got double digits in terms of votes we’d had one from Birmingham perfectly good bids but I just sensed that I’d always said if we throw London into the mix then people will take it seriously

But we had had such a inauspicious start that I thought the the most I’d be able to do was to make sure that the defeat wasn’t an embarrassing one it was only when we started to get into it that I realized the momentum we we we’d got

Some momentum and Paris towards the end just stopped making they thought it was theirs to lose which was fatal and it allowed us to be very active right up to the last minute includ obviously the PM and uh yeah we just snuck across the line one of the things

You reflect on a lot is um kind of language and politics and the media and I wondered how that affects sport um how have things changed since the 70s to today in terms of celebrity sport what it means to be an athlete and and how being an athlete compares to being a

Footballer or a box or other kind of high celebrity Sportsman in terms of public attention wealth celebrity and what that does to people’s personality well let me let me throw this at you could your mom today name any British athlete no so this isn’t she would have

Done yeah she would have been able to do yeah no that that’s so that’s something I’ve always been a very interested I maybe it’s my generation but obviously I felt I knew who Muhammad Ali was yes I knew who you were yeah I struggle more with contemporary boxers and

Contemporary Runners so it is it just what’s happened what free to a television of course so you know you have only relative I mean a handful of people relatively in relative terms are watching Big title fights they’re watching it on pay-per-view they’re watching it on you know on cable it’s

Not what it was and this is this is one of the things that I’m I’ve been really wrestling with and hopefully shifting a bit in terms of how how Athletics is seen free to AAR television is really important for that and everybody you know we talk big game about all sorts of

Things television is still a very important medium for sport and Athletics was we were lucky for for one interesting set of circumstances in the 70s English football was not what it is now we were banned from Europe we had hooliganism and and you know it was not a Savory place to be

I mean football fans still went but you weren’t that mad about your kids going the our staple Sports were really underperforming we didn’t have an Andy Murray in tennis you know we cricket was sort of in andout rugby we were you know getting hammered pretty much and then

Suddenly off the back of the 76 games was a disaster Brendan Foster was the only medalist in the British team on the track got a bronze in the 10,000 M and you know we we went back and interestingly Australia at that time had an equally disastrous 76 they didn’t get

Really any virtually no I don’t think they got a single gold medal in swimming which you know demanded almost a national autopsy there and they responded in a very different way they created The Institute of sport in CRA and you know it took 10 12 years before

It started to pay off but Australian sport really did we sort of thought well just one last heave will do it and a few athletes will come along mercely they did and in that period I sort of came into view Steve oette did a young Steve cram daily Thompson yeah Tessa Anderson

And suddenly you had not just British athletes winning things domestically or even in Europe you had them winning world titles which outside of boxing nothing we weren’t doing in any other Sport and suddenly these were the back the you know was the back page lead Brendan always tells me an interesting

Story I mean can you imagine putting this into a into today’s setting Newcastle United would ring him up when he was organizing the gates head uh international meeting and they’d say Bren are you going on Friday night or Saturday afternoon and he’d say well why he said well if you’re going Saturday

After after move our match to the Friday night yeah you so the world has moved on and it’s not that Athletics is is is really any less popular it’s just that you’re in a very much more yeah football football and football is just it controls everything on your your current

Role just very briefly go take us through three of the big things on your on your plate doping yeah Russia and trans yes it’s quite a lot to be getting on with it really isn’t it it’s quite a lot but so um doping yeah sorted out or not sorted

Out will you ever sort it out is it sorted out probably not so I inherited a sport that I I remember arriving um having won the right to become president of the sport I’ve been campaigning for two years for it it wasn’t a huge majority but two weeks

Into the job um somebody appeared my receptionist came knocked on my office door i’ i’ I’d only been in the building a couple of days and he said there are some people to come and see you and I thought it was a nice local custom there’ll be a glass of

Champagne a piece of cake there were 17 French policemen three from Interpol and a Mustachio guy who introduced himself as judge Renault van renck great name who was senior Prosecuting judge for crossborder corruption and five hours later in a police station locally um I was advised that my predecessor had been arrested in

Paris that morning his son was on the run the had of te anti-doping had been arrested the legal council had been arrested and the CEO a couple of days earlier had advised everybody who was going backpacking in Australia and give list this bit of background at that stage the French believed what had

Happened what was the allegations they believed that well as it was subsequently proven in in the French cours two years later that there had been corruption on a fairly Grand scale and one element of it was that Russian athletes had been approached to have their tests either slow down or disappear for

Extortion and this had been taking place for some time and you know then the then the circus starts select committees you know are you corrupt or were you asleep at you know I was one of five vice presidents it’s not like a footsy 100 you know you meet three or

Four times a year but it doesn’t matter so I you must have did you suspect no really not not not you know it subsequently it was pretty clear to me that there were just too much power in the hands of too few people so when so I I really then took a

Flamethrower to the sport we re we rewrote the Constitution and we created something called the athletic Integrity unit so we took the doping control out of the Federation away from politics where it is entirely independent and anonymous you guys can tell me this but why do we have these big corruption

Scandals I have a sense that we have terrible complaints about football governing bodies we have terrible complaints about the Olympics we have terrible and what’s going on I I’m not defending sport um although I probably by even starting off I’m probably about to do that I don’t think they’re any more

Livid than most areas than Pol politics than British politics well I’m not saying British politics I think British politics is in large part incredibly clean has been well okay but you know you compare it with models around the world alist yeah no but but but Sports let’s be honest sports had a reputation

For a long long time well yeah but anymore than the city any more than inside being inside a trading case well is money and power no it’s it’s interesting it’s interesting three paragraphs into some big investigative peace on you know on corporate greed and you you most

People are switching off but if you’ve got names and you’ve got a sport and you’ve got football or you’ve got Athletics and you know high-profile names like mine or whoever come up of course they’re the 50 pound notes of journalistic currency I’m not saying we

Haven’t had those of course we have I I know it from my own experience you’ve you’ve only got to look at football but yes we have those problems and one of the challenges is that most sports have been until relatively recently very badly governed no checks and balances I

Remember as a as a sort of backbencher in the sport daring to suggest in one council meeting we might have an audit committee you’d have thought I’d have announced the culling of the first born in Every Family obviously given the context of what they were yeah so so

Going back to your initial question about anti about doping yeah I mean Russia were at it state sponsored I mean industrial scale and it was a monstrous incursion into the Integrity of the sport and I it was on my watch and I had to do something about it as far as

You’re concerned they’ve shown nothing that would allow them back in it’s very interesting so we created a task force I appointed a guy called Runa Anderson who probably knows more about this subject than anybody and slowly but surely we did get them back to a position where

Had it not been for the Russian invasion of Ukraine they would they they had made the journey so the athletic Integrity unit do the testing we have two or three Independents inserted into their Federation the member Federation for for Russia the Athletics Federation and we felt that by process and by being tough

And not by Keeling over like other sports did and say well it’s too big to deal with we suspended them and so for seven years we wrestled with this but we did get it back to a position of course the next you know the next box set appears

And that’s the decision that the council took around not accepting them into international support after the invasion so they’re running the neutral bestest uh not in my sport they don’t they so so the the International Federation has Primacy in deciding the eligibility of competitors so we have said no so they

Will not they will they will not be in Paris now your son once said to you stop calling it my Sport and he’s right so why do you keep calling it my sport SE yes slap on the wrist the sport the sport um trans yes difficult yes and

No yes and no um and I’m I’m trying not to oversimplify this or sound too brutal about it I do my mandate gives me one very very clear responsibility well lots of clear responsibilities but one overarching one and that is protecting the female category you have two categories in

Sport you have gender and you have age age because you assume it’s better that that you haven’t got Olympic Champions competing against 16 year olds in the Grassmere Sports and gender because if you don’t protect the female category then no woman will ever win another event so we

Have two issues that are quite complicated and complex one is something called SD which is differences of sexual development uh and and that is one Element trans is different and should not be confused with that and we the Council made a judgment that the science around being able

To have transgender athletes in that transitional phase um reducing their testosterone the science was not clear whether that would have any impact on the residual effect of going from male biology and Physiology to female biology and Physiology and at this point we’ve said we’re not prepared to take that

Risk um and it’s for only the Elite Sports so I will die in a ditch over the ability of transgender competitors to be involved in participatory sport we’re talking about a very very few at the elite level and I have to protect the female category my final question um I mean

It’s an extraordinary career I mean absolutely unbelievable all the different things you’ve done um will you leave listeners with a some experience or Insight on leadership you’ve been in many many different types of leadership position if you were counseling somebody on leadership what would what would your

What would be a tip do what I’ve consistently done and actually interestingly going back to my Athletics career the one thing I did learn I my father was my coach but he brought probably the smartest brains of their generation into a back room team they tended to be American because at that

Point in in Europe work sport physiology was physiology was a very dry academic subject the Americans turned that dry academic subject into something that was of practical application how do you make the boat go quicker how’ you get people to cycle how’ you improve the Cadence in

You know competitor in athletics and so from that funny little group that worked with me I learned two or three things which I just applied I’m not an MBA Harvard grad the first was do what he did although he was probably one of the most intelligent people I know but do

Surround yourself with people that are far smarter than you and when you find them trust them to get on with the job don’t sit on their shoulders which is exactly what I did in London I I did bring to the table the smartest people I could find you know Paul dayon who was

My CEO obviously politically people like Tessa but you know if you look at that team that created and drove the London Games I was very prent to be sort of chairing it but they were the most extraordinary people the second thing is just remove all the Inhibitors you

Possibly can in a leadership role from preventing the people that you have trusted to get on with the job from derailing what they need to do and that sometimes means taking one for the team so you know in the Olympic year it meant going on Radio 5 on 4:00 on a

Friday afternoon and getting beaten up by taxi drivers because you weren’t you could you know they weren’t going to be able to access the Olympic Lane you know along the embankment for you know two weeks why would your highly intelligent CEO spend his time you know rehearsing for select committees or

Doing those sorts of things so I think find the people people if they world class trust them to get on with it and remove all the Inhibitors from their day that would allow them that would stop them from doing that and just find really really smart people

Because if you do then it’s probably self-preserving as well now my final question uh relates to something you said earlier which Rory very rapidly moved on from before I could develop the theme which is when you said that you thought the Tores were done uh I thought you were

I I thought it was a rather benign response to that obviously music to my ears but so you’re a member of the House of Lords Lord Co companion of Honor um if you did still have a vote would you vote for this lot to come back I would

Look of course I would vote conservative I am a conservative and that’s not going to ever vary um I’m know what kind of conservative I am and I don’t witness maybe as many of them around at the moment as as I would it’s a different

Party from the one that I joined but you know the the the conservative party has to remember that it has been at its most successful when it’s been operating at the center as most political parties do so yes of course I I would I I don’t

There are elements of the party that I don’t much I don’t find particularly edifying at the moment and you think they’re done you think labor are going to win think the electorate do make a decision and whether they they’ve actually articulated it whether they’ve

Even come to but there is a there is a moment and I think this may be it well thank you very very much indeed it’s been a great great pleasure thank you I’ve enjoyed it so love to see You