Embattled Coe 'not in denial' of challenge facing IAAF

Embattled IAAF president Sebastian Coe admits that his five-month tenure of athletics governing body has been a "real challenge", but insisted in an interview with AFP that he is under no illusions about the problems ahead.
Since taking over from the disgraced Lamine Diack, Coe has had to battle through a scandal that has seen Russia banned over "state-sponsored" doping and a raft of top officials, including Diack, accused of taking bribes from doped athletes.
"The last few months have been a real challenge, you would be surprised if I said it wasn't. The sport has been hit hard," Coe said in a wide-ranging interview.

"I can't tell you that I sit here taking a great deal of comfort from very much at the moment."
In a career that has seen him win two Olympic 1500m gold medals before becoming a successful businessman and a member of the British parliament, Coe knows how to dodge and take a bullet or two.
The 59-year-old found himself at the eye of the storm after a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) independent commission published two damning reports detailing "embedded" corruption within the top echelons of the IAAF.

Coe, who served eight years as a vice-president under Diack, was a member of the IAAF Council that should have been aware of the astonishing level of corruption, WADA said.

Dick Pound, former WADA president and author of the reports, handed Coe a lifeline, however, when he publicly endorsed him as the right man to lead the IAAF out of the storm engulfing the Olympics' top sport.
"I'm grateful to the independent commission because they have spent a lot of time helping shed light onto something we need to understand as much as we possibly can," Coe said.
"I took some comfort from some of the conclusions that our systems are not chronically broken, that the IAAF has a good record in addressing these issues, that it did do the pioneering work on the blood passport and accredited laboratories, and, in their (WADA) words not mine, the IAAF did follow up where it was at all possible.

"We're not in denial about the challenge that there is, but I was pleased to have the report confirm that good people did do what they could to raise their concerns and through an ethics commission and we need to make sure the future of our sport is built on good people.