Olympic drug cheats will not sleep easy, Seb Coe warns

Technological advances have improved drug detection, says double gold medallist

Sebastian Coe, appearing at the Hay Festival, expressed doubts that the upcoming Paris Olympic Games will be drug-free. Coe, a former athlete with four Olympic medals, including two 1500m golds, and the World Athletics president who led the London 2012 bid, stated there will likely be drug cheats but warned they should not “sleep easily.”

Coe highlighted that while technological advances have made doping easier to detect, some athletes remain undeterred. When asked if he believed the Games would be free of drug use, he candidly responded, “The honest answer to that is no, sadly.”

He elaborated: “They will be cleaner, I hope, than previous Games… But I have to be realistic about it. I think it is a much safer landscape than it used to be; there are things we’re doing that we didn’t do before, because of technology.

“But human nature tells me there will always be a few who, even with the right education programmes and tough deterrents, are going to make that risk/reward decision and step outside the moral boundaries.”

Warning athletes, Coe emphasized the improvements in technology: “Things that we are now able to test for – if you’re watching championships now you will see us redesignating medals from six or seven years ago.

“No athlete who thinks they’ve got away with it on one occasion can sleep easily, because we have the systems to go back and test things we may not even know at this moment.”

On the topic of the ethics of Coca-Cola being an official Olympic partner, Coe acknowledged the criticism from health campaigners, admitting the relationship was “a bit odd.”

“I’m not an apologist for Coca-Cola but they have been with the Olympics since 1928. If you were coming fresh to the table now, maybe that wouldn’t be a brand that was automatically there,” he said.

“There are some brands that you look at and think it’s a bit odd that they are associated with sport, which is supposed to be about health and longevity.”

Coe also reiterated his stance on transgender participation in sports. Last year, World Athletics banned transgender women from competing in the female category at international events.

“To protect and preserve the female category, we can’t have a sport where young girls wanting to enter the sport feel there is a biological ceiling beyond which they can’t go. They have to believe they can go from playground to podium.

“If you don’t do that, no woman will win a sporting event, and I’m afraid it is as binary as that,” he stated.