Sebastian Coe lined up as new BBC Trust chairman after Boris Johnson lets slip the 'fantastic news' | Daily Mail Online Share this article Share He said: ‘I think you will find that whenever any job at the moment comes up I seem to be slated in for it. ‘Either the Mayor of London, Fifa, International Olympic Committee. I’m very flattered, thank you, but I’ve actually just got off a plane. I have absolutely nothing more to say.’ After Lord Patten stood down, it was suggested that David Cameron wanted a woman to fill the role, with Dame Marjorie Scardino, the former chief executive of FTSE100 company Pearson, heavily tipped. Lord Coe’s appointment would be popular among Tory MPs who remain concerned about left-wing bias within the corporation. Unlike Lord Patten, he is seen as a ‘true Tory’ in his beliefs.

Seb Coe, who is rooted in the real world and renowned for his common sense would be an 'inspirational choice' Coe was a Conservative MP for five years before losing his seat in the 1997 general election, returning to politics for a short time as William Hague’s chief of staff after receiving a life peerage in 2000. A double Olympic gold medallist in the Eighties, he has also already had a working relationship with BBC director-general Tony Hall. In 2009, Hall, then chief executive of the Royal Opera House, was asked to chair a board to direct the Cultural Olympiad. This gave Hall a seat on the board of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, which Coe chaired. Lord Coe would move into the job following a string of highly damaging scandals at the corporation. The BBC was lambasted for its handling of the Jimmy Savile scandal that broke after the presenter’s death in 2011. In November 2012 George Entwistle quit as director-general after a disastrous Newsnight programme wrongly implicated Lord McAlpine in a child sex abuse scandal.

The BBC has also been criticised after details emerged of shocking payoffs worth tens of millions of pounds to senior BBC managers. Technological changes have also led to question marks about the future of the licence fee. The BBC’s royal charter, which secures its funding from the compulsory licence fee, which currently costs £145.50, is up for renewal at the end of 2016. As Sebastian Coe, he became a household name in 1980 when he won the 1500 metres Olympic gold medal – a feat he repeated at the Los Angeles Games in 1984. Tory peer Lord Patten stood down as BBC Trust chairman after three turbulent years in charge. He said he could no longer do the job because of ill health His victory over his great rival Steve Ovett in Moscow in 1980 is still seen as one of the great Olympic stories. He claimed the gold, crossing the line, arms aloft, only days after losing to Ovett over 800 metres, which was seen as Coe’s specialism.

After retiring from athletics, he was elected in 1992 as a Tory MP for the Cornwall constituency of Falmouth and Camborne until his defeat in the 1997 election. He was chairman of Britain’s triumphant bid to host the 2012 Olympics, and took the same role in the committee organising the Games, which were widely seen as one of the most successful in recent years. The formal selection process for the chair of the BBC – for which Lord Patten was paid £110,000 a year for a three-day week – will be overseen by Culture Secretary Sajid Javid. The appointment would be formally approved by the Prime Minister and rubber-stamped by the Queen. Key moments in Lord Coe's career - BBC News BBC News Key moments in Lord Coe's career 19 August 2015 Close share panel Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Two Olympic golds, world records and a stint as an MP all feature on an impressive CV After being elected the new president of the IAAF, Lord Coe said taking the role was "probably the second biggest and most momentous occasion in my life" after the birth of his children.

But there are plenty of other options to choose from, including Olympic gold medals, world records and election to Parliament. 1979 - Three world records in 41 days Image caption A young Sebastian Coe was awarded Sports Personality of the Year As a young middle distance runner, Sebastian Coe claimed a number of UK records and had already begun to show considerable talents as an athlete by 1979. But the year marked an important milestone when - aged just 22 - he broke the 800m, one mile and 1,500m world records within the space of just 41 days. He was the first person to hold all three records at the same time. He also won Sports Personality of the Year. 1980 - First Olympic medals Media captionCoe remembers his Moscow 1980 heroics Coe will always be remembered for his Olympic success. In 1980, amid intense rivalry with fellow British runner Steve Ovett, he won gold in the 1,500m in Moscow. He took silver in his preferred race - the 800m - finishing second to Ovett.

1984 - Second Olympic Gold Image copyright Getty Images Despite spending months fighting illness, Coe returned to the Olympic track in Los Angeles four years later and became the first man to win successive 1,500m golds, beating fellow Briton Steve Cram into second (Ovett failed to finish the race). Coe was beaten into second again in the 800m by Joaquim Cruz. 1992 - Enters Parliament After retiring from athletics in 1990, Coe pursued a career in politics and was chosen to fight the Falmouth and Camborne constituency for the Conservatives at the 1992 election. Coe beat the Liberal Democrat candidate by more than 3,000 votes and took his place in Parliament. He lost the seat in 1997 when Tony Blair's Labour Party swept to power. He briefly returned to politics as chief of staff to William Hague, when he was Leader of the Opposition. 2005 - Helps secure Olympics for London Image copyright PA Despite London lagging in third place behind Paris and Madrid in early stages, the UK capital secured the games under Coe's leadership.

Sports commentators said a speech he made, shortly before the vote, helped turn the race in London's favour. "This is almost entirely on a different planet to winning the gold medals," Coe said at the time. He went on to become Chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and is said to have been a key player in organising the Queen's appearance in the James Bond scene in the Games' opening ceremony. 2015 - Elected president of the IAAF Media captionCoe 'honoured' with IAAF presidency Despite one of the most impressive CVs in athletics history, Lord Coe suggested his election as IAAF chief topped all his achievements. He beat Sergey Bubka, a former Olympic pole vault champion, by 115 votes to 92. His first test, and perhaps his biggest yet, will be to deal with the fallout from doping allegations.

Lord Coe faces culture, media and sport select committee: IAAF president is grilled over doping scandal - Telegraph Athletics Lord Coe faces culture, media and sport select committee: IAAF president is grilled over doping scandal Following a series of scandals that engulfed the sport, the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, was grilled by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee on Wednesday afternoon Lord Coe, the IAAFpresident, will have to answer questions in front of the select committee Photo: EPA By John MacLeary and Ben Bloom 5:15PM GMT 02 Dec 2015 Latest 17:15 In summary Sebastian Coe, the IAAF president, said on Wednesday he was the right person to clean up athletics and make it responsible and accountable in the wake of a doping crisis that has embroiled track and field. The head of athletics' world governing body was quizzed about doping by the Culture, Media and Sport select committee, and said failures had been made but he is the right man to fix them. "I have the experience to do that and I have the support of the sport. Have there been failures? Yes. Will I fix them?

Yes," Coe, himself a middle-distance Olympic gold medallist, said when asked if he could lead athletics out of the mire. "If I don't do that I know there will be no tomorrows in our sport. I want a responsible and accountable sport. I want a sport people can trust," said Coe, a former member of parliament and now a member of the upper chamber, the House of Lords. Athletics was plunged into crisis last month over a report by the independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) detailed systematic, state-sponsored doping and related corruption in Russia. The IAAF has since voted overwhelmingly to suspend Russia from the sport - potentially casting one of track and field's most successful nations out of next year's Rio Olympics. The IAAF itself has also been beset by corruption allegations regarding the taking of bribes to cover up doping. The retired Lamine Diack, who Coe succeeded as president, was last month placed under formal investigation by French authorities on suspicion of corruption and money laundering. The 82-year-old Senegalese is alleged to have received more than 1 million euros in bribes in 2011 to cover up positive doping tests of Russian athletes.

Diack's family has dismissed what they called the "excessive and insignificant accusations". Coe has steadfastly denied that the governing body of athletics had been complacent in its handling of doping cases and rebuffed criticism that he, as Diack's deputy since 2007, must have known the extent of the problems in the sport. "My vice presidency role is non-executive. It was about 10 days a year. We have a clear separation between anti-doping and non-executive committee," he said. "I was aware that we had a problem but not the specific numbers. "If you're asking specifically about names and numbers, I would not have known that." Coe was widely criticised for describing German broadcaster ARD and Sunday Times' August allegations that the IAAF had ignored widespread blood-doping as a "declaration of war on our sport". Journalists had obtained a database of athletes' blood tests over an 11-year period and concluded, after an examination by two experts, that it contained hundreds of suspicious results that the IAAF should have acted on. The committee called Coe to appear as it explores the allegations.

Coe, who last week stepped down from his ambassadorial role with Nike after facing repeated questions about a potential conflict of interest, said he stuck with the sentiment but could have chosen his words differently. "It probably expressed my frustration and anger at the time," said Coe. "I was being contacted by clean athletes and coaches at how they were having their reputations imperiled." "The issue I took exception to was very selective use of data that could not be used to prove positive tests. Just putting data out into the public domain as raw data is not good for clean athletes," he said. Coe, 59, had a glorious career on the track and then a varied one off it. As being a politician, he is a hugely successful businessman and headed the bid for and delivery of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Asked if there is an acceptance within the IAAF that doping was tolerable, Coe dismissed that accusation. "If I go back to the immediate challenge we have there is Russia's ban and allegations made about some people in the IAAF.

"If you say IAAF has acceptance that doping is acceptable, I don't accept that." After more than two hours, Coe was questioned on his association with sportswear giant Nike. He again denied a conflict of interest - a charge previously levelled by committee member Damian Collins, among others. Coe last week ended his 38-year ambassadorial role with Nike. Coe said: "I made the judgement, given the level of noise around the relationship, that this had become a monstrous distraction, that reality and perception had become horribly entangled and I didn't want anything to distract from the changes I'm making." Coe pointed to previous roles, with London 2012 and the British Olympic Association, where he declared the reported £100,000-a-year Nike role, as he did with the IAAF. "In hindsight would I have got rid of it earlier? If I'd thought the noise would've got to the level it did, yes, I would have done," Coe said.

"It would have been a conflict of interest if it hadn't been properly identified." The American city of Eugene, which is home to Nike, has been awarded the 2021 IAAF World Championships, without a bidding process, after missing out on the 2019 event. Coe rebuffed suggestions of a conflict of interest there, despite an email emerging last week which suggested he lobbied his predecessor Lamine Diack over the hosting of the 2021 World Championships. "The email clearly indicates a wide-ranging conversation. I don't actually remember the conversation," Coe added. "The advice I gave was very clear and concise and recorded in the email: get back into the competition." Asked why he engaged in the conversation, given his role with Nike, Coe said: "Because I was asked the question." Reuters/PA 17:00 And on it goes... Seb Coe is still talking. I'm no expert in body language, but I reckon members of the select committee are tiring now. I know I am. Chester and Ellesmere Port to host Worlds?

Question: "Surely the only reason Eugene got the World Champs is because Nike are based there?" Coe: "Before Nike moved there, Eugene had a rich athletics heritage. It is known as Tracktown." Follow-up: "It is not a credible host for the World Championships." Coe: "Yes it is." The MP from Chester asks if his constituency that includes and Ellesmere Port - and is around the size of Eugene - could ever hope to host the world championships? "It can try," quips Coe. 16:50 The Salazar/Nike question Lord Coe is asked if he took advice from Nike before publicly supporting Alberto Salazar following the controversial BBC Panorama documentary that claimed the coach ran a doping programme. Coe: "I was asked if I was a friend of Alberto Salazar and I said yes." But were you asked about the allegations by Nike? Coe: No. The Nike question: part two So, asks the select committee, which host city did you vote for? Coe confirms he voted for Eugene before describing it a: “strategic decision”.

Eugene/the United States is "a country we needed to be in," says Coe 16:33 The Nike question: part one Just over two hours into his grilling and we're onto the topic of the awarding of the 2021 World Championships to Eugene (where Nike are based), which was decided without the usual bidding process. Coe is adamant that all he did was advise Nike that he had told Eugene to get into the bid cycle (which of course never actually took place because they were later awarded it without other bids). He strongly denies that there was any conflict of interest between his Nike role and his IAAF vice-presidency role, and he strongly denies that he had any influence on the decision (beyond voting for Eugene in the IAAF Council vote). Coe: "I made the judgment given the level of noise around the relationships that this had become a monstrous distraction. Reality and perception had been horribly entangled." As he did last week, Coe again denies that there was a conflict of interest. "In hindsight would I have got rid of it earlier? Yes I would have done." The president denies that there was any conflict of interest with him working for Nike and heading up the world governing body for athletics.

That will be the the world governing body for athletics that handed Eugene, the home of Nike, the 2021 Athletics World Championships. Are the committee not familiar with happy coincidences? On Eugene 2021, Coe: "There was no direct interest in the organisation of those World Championships" The Diack question The select committee ask Coe his thoughts on the arrest of former IAAF president Lamine Diack? "Shock confused with sorrow and anger. I am chairman of an organisation where we are consoling people that for 20 years worked alongside other people who are subject to abhorrent criminal accusations." Do you regret referring to Diack as the "spiritual leader" of athletics (Coe made the comment the day that he was elected to the presidency this summer)? "Clearly if I had been sitting with a charge sheet of allegations in front of me I wouldn't have said that." 16:10 The Russia question Coe is asked about the fact that the Stepanovs (who blew the whistle on Russian doping in the German documentary) are currently in hiding in an unknown country.

Question: "How do you feel about a whistleblower having to go into hiding." Coe: "I'm clearly sorry." 16:05 TV times The line of questioning now concerns the German documentary maker Hajo Seppelt, who first broke the news of Russia's doping indiscretions and who is sat barely three metres away from Seb Coe this afternoon. While the IAAF president attempts to answer questions thrown at him, Seppelt is busy waving his arms around wildly and not so subtly mumbling "LIAR" and "NOT TRUE". 15:55 The long and winding ... answer Coe, once again, finishes off one of his long-winded answers with another question. After going on for an interminable time about whether athletes' 'positive' date should be made public, the IAAF president concludes: "Would this be risky for clean athletes?" By the way, a few minutes ago Coe vehemently stated that British athletes were clean in his day. In the interests of transparency Coe is asked if all blood data should be made public. He's always fiercely argued against this. "No. It is confidential to all athletes and it can only be used as an indicator for follow-ups.

Some of that data that has been used has damaged the reputation of clean athletes," I have to say that I agree with him, writes Ben Bloom. There are often many reasons for single abnormal blood values and if every one was made public, the finger of suspicion would be pointed at clean athletes. The issue is whether the IAAF acts on abnormal data swiftly enough and thoroughly enough. Whack! Question time "Is the IAAF a corrupt organisation?" Coe: "No. Some very serious allegations have been made about former members and I accept that, but I don't accept that the IAAF is corrupt." 15:38 Seb's just lapped himself... Lord Coe must have mentioned about a dozen times today that he joined an athletics club aged 11. I don't know why he feels this matter so much on a day like this, but he clearly does. Coe has reminded us that he joined an athletics club at the age of 11. Did he join an athletics club at the age of 11? Yes he did. 15:35 It's not a sprint, it's a marathon It's all starting to drag a bit.

More and more people are getting up to take a "comfort break", journalists are starting to mutter among themselves and Coe has once again told his tale of joining an athletics club at the age of 11. Someone just sneezed, which was the highlight of the past 15 minutes. I'm glad our Athletics Correspondent wrote that. I thought I'd missed something. Seb's still talking. I know nothing Coe is asked about Kenya and whether he has "suspicions about other countries". His reply: "This is not simply about Russia and not simply about athletics. I will await with interest the second Wada independent commission report." Follow-up question: "Do you suspect there is more to come?" Coe: "I don't know." 15:20 Money matters The IAAF spends around $4 million a year to combat doping, which a DCMS member says is a quarter of what the International Cycling Union, the governing body of world cycling's, spend. Is Coe prepared to do more? "I'll do whatever it takes. I'll double that figure if I have to".

(My GCSE maths tells me that would take the IAAF to half the amount spent by the UCI.) 15:15 Can't get no satisfaction Ian Lucas MP is fast taking on a starring role as the Jon Snow of the DCMS here in Westminster. Lucas: "Did you personally raise the issue of blood doping while you were a vice-president? The job of the non-executive vice-president is to ask difficult questions?" Coe: "Yes... we would all ask those questions. Me and other members." Lucas: "And how were you satisfied? Because here we are eight years on." 15:10 Meet me at the crossroads An admission! Coe says there were "failures and weaknesses" and he will look to fix them. But he is insistent that during the vast majority of his vice-presidency his role was to deliver a successful Olympics at London 2012. Coe is then asked why he thinks he can clean up the sport now when he didn't during his tenure as vice-president. "I have the experience to do that and the support of the sport to do that. I am absolutely focused on doing that and if we don't do that there are no tomorrow's for our sport.

This is a crossroads." 15:05 The inside track Ian Lucas continues to question Coe and attempts to quiz him on his relationship with Fifa. Coe says he's heard about the "allegations" of corruption at the highest level of world football's governance. So, you were on the inside at Fifa and have had a senior role at IAAF since 2007 and have done nothing about doping. What makes you think yoiu can change that now? "Because I have the support of the sport to do that" Seb #Coe on blood doping allegations at #IAAF . "Can we fix it? Yes we can." pic.twitter.com/cI8r1SwO7R What did you do in the (drugs) war, daddy? Questions: What did you do when you became vie-president to counter doping? Coe does not talk about himself and instead discusses the work of the IAAF Council. "Were we aware that in some areas we had an escalating situation in some countries? We were aware and the Council did raise questions about the nature of this in some countries." DCMS member Ian Lucas is questioning Coe over and over again here. Did you do enough?

Did you do enough? Did you do enough? Did you do enough? This is a bit more lively. Coe can't get off the hook quite as easily as he was earlier. The IAAF president eventually responds at the umpteenth time of asking and says that yes, enough was done. 14:58 On the backfoot Coe is on the defensive over the lack of action taken to counter doping while he was IAAF vice-president between 2007-2015: "My vice-president role is non-executive and probably about 10 days a year. We have a very clear separation between the anti-doping unit and the non-executive directors..." That don't impress us much Question: "Why hasn't the IAAF been tougher in going after dopers?" Capdevielle: "The IAAF has played a leading role in trying to determine..." Blah, blah, blah, blah. Questioner: "I don't think you answered the question, but ok." 14:50 Passport please It's all getting very technical about whether blood values from pre-2009 (and therefore pre-Athlete Biological Passport) can be used to indicate doping or not.

Coe has been silent for the majority of questioning, allowing Capdevielle to field the questions. The IAAF anti-doping man is fiercely defending the fact that pre-2009 blood values CANNOT be used indicate doping by themselves without follow-ups. Seb Coe and Thomas Capdevielle! #IAAF pic.twitter.com/lKCECVVHmQ 14:50 Over to you Tommy Boy I'll be honest, I'm quite surprised at how many questions Thomas Capdevielle, the IAAF's senior doping manager, is fielding here - as are quite a few people on Twitter. Anti doping expert Thomas Capdevielle right now @sebcoe #IAAF pic.twitter.com/xCZtSCpne7 14:45 Where's Snow? Get Snow in. Now "Heading towards the half-hour mark here and this hasn't really caught light", writes in Ben Bloom who sounds like he actually thinks he's been dispatched to cover a fight. "The questions have been relatively soft so far and there has been little by way of accusations from the DCMS chaps. Remember, Coe is a brilliant politician and and excellent public speaker.

He can deflect soft questions with ease." Lost in translation? Question: Do you stick by your "declaration of war" comment? Coe (after talking around the subject for many minutes): "I stick by my sentiments. I probably might have chosen different language." Coe back on "declaration of war" comment: “Look, it probably expressed my frustration and – yes – anger at the time.” Nice sidestep Another question for Coe: Why did you describe the Sunday Times anti-doping experts as "so-called experts"? Again, he doesn't answer the question but questions the "selective use of data" by the Sunday Times and German documentary maker ARD. The maker of that documentary Hajo Seppelt is sat behind me and is tutting, sighing and shaking his head vigorously. Meanwhile, Seb Coe just said this: 'The best way to cover blood doping is not to test'. Doesn't sound like Seb Coe has paid much attention to David Walsh's advice in the Sunday Times pic.twitter.com/XeBwXd4KnR 14.33 War, what is it good for?

Coe is asked about his comments earlier this summer that the media have launched a "declaration of war" on the sport with reports of widespread doping. He refutes making such a statement and insists he was only commenting on "the very selective use of data" and the misinterpretation of such data. "I have placed on record my thanks to whistleblowers. The changes I am making to the constitution will give greater access for whistleblowers to extend their concerns." ... and still running More here from Ben Bloom... About six minutes in and Coe has deflected a question to anti-doping manager Thomas Capdevielle about how many people in athletics are doping. Capdevielle talks a lot without actually answering the question. To summarise his ramblings: "The IAAF does not underestimate the extent of doping". What both Capdevielle and Coe are adamant is that the statistics are being skewed by a small number of countries. 14.25 ... and running ... Coe is asked whether blood doping should be a criminal offence? "This is a good debate. We looked at criminalisation and we felt that the first thing to do was create criminalisation around trafficking.

I have a concern about making doping a criminal offence." He then talks about the difficulties of criminal and civil cases. "Ultimately I think it is better to have a sporting sanction rather than a criminal sanction." 14:20 And we're off... Seb Coe has arrived and it's time to get things off and running. A soft opening question for the big man: "What is your personal view on blood doping?" Cue Coe reeling off why he loves athletics and why he took it up as an 11-year-old. Things will doubtless pick up soon... Answer this... So what do we think the select committee will be asking Lord Coe? Most of this afternoon's line of questioning, I would imagine, will centre around doping but there could also be a few tricky ones regarding Coe's links with Nike and awarding of the 2021 Athletics World Championships to Eugene, Oregeon - the home of the sportswear manufacturer. 14:00 Smile for the cameras As we mentioned earlier, Athletics Correspondent Ben Bloom has a ringside seat na dhas filed his first missive of the afternoon.

The cameras are poised and ready outside Portcullis House here in Westminster and there are already at least 30 journalists waiting in the corridor. It's certainly not the usual one or two folk who turn up to the average DCMS sub-committee hearing. Things aren't expected to get underway until 2.15pm and word is that Seb Coe will be flanked by IAAF anti-doping manager Thomas Capdevielle during the hearing. 14:00 Pre-match build-up ... Afternoon all and, well, isn't this an unexpected treat? While most of the country is focusing on what's being said in the Houses of Parliament , a dozen Members of Parliament - including Lord Coe, MP for Falmouth and Camborne - are tucked away in the Grimond Room to discuss some sport. Or the politics of sport to be more precise. @charlottechurch i think some have gone to ask Seb Coe about sports 13:00 Let's talk about this ... Ben Bloom will be sat ringside from around 2.15pm keeping John MacLeary informed what is being said so that he, in turn, can tell you what's going on.

Lord Coe, the president of athletics' embattled world governing body, will later today appear before MPs to answer questions on the handling of athletics' doping scandal. Coe is to give evidence to the culture, media and sport select committee investigating blood doping in the sport following revelations made in The Sunday Times in August. The IAAF president will be quizzed about the world governing body's response to doping allegations, including the former Olympic 1,500 metres champion's remark in August that investigations into suspicious blood results amounted to "a declaration of war on our sport". He has since insisted he was only referring to stories which had tainted the reputation of clean athletes. Coe can also expect questions on his association with sportswear giant Nike. He denied a conflict of interest - a charge levelled by committee member Damian Collins, among others - but last week ended his 38-year ambassadorial role with Nike. Nike sponsors Russia's athletics team, the first country to be banned from international competition due to doping offences. The sanction was imposed in the wake of damning revelations by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) of systematic doping and cover-ups in Russia.

American sprinter Justin Gatlin, who has been banned before returning to the sport, is another of those sponsored by Nike. The company has close links to Eugene, which was awarded the 2021 World Championships without a vote, something which is also likely to be on the committee's agenda. Paula Radcliffe in September went public to defend her name, claiming she had been effectively identified by the committee of MPs as having provided suspicious blood samples. The marathon world record holder was last week declared innocent of any blood doping by the IAAF and Wada. How athletics' great doping scandal unfolded The allegations surface Dec 3, 2014 German state broadcaster ARD airs "Secret doping dossier: How Russia produces its winners" - a damning 60-minute documentary alleging systematic state-sponsored doping in Russian athletics. The first casualties Dec 11, 2014 Russian athletics chief and IAAF treasurer Valentin Balakhnichev, and IAAF marketing consultant Pape Massata Diack, son of the then IAAF president Lamine Diack, step down while corruption and doping allegations are investigated by IAAF's ethics commission.

Independent commission set up Dec 16, 2014 World-Anti-Doping-Agency (Wada) sets up a three-person independent commission to investigate claims headed by its former chief, Canadian Dick Pound. New revelations Aug 1, 2015 ARD airs second documentary "Doping - top secret: The shadowy world of athletics", featuring new accusations aimed at Russian and Kenyan athletes. ARD and The Sunday Times said they were leaked a database belonging to athletics' governing body with details of 12,000 blood tests from 5,000 competitors which revealed "extraordinary" levels of doping. IAAF accused of failing to follow up suspicious tests by hundreds of athletes including world champions and Olympic medal winners. A new president Aug 19, 2015 British track legend Sebastian Coe - who had called the allegations a "declaration of war" on athletics - is elected to succeed Lamine Diack as IAAF president Diack faces corruption charges Nov 4, 2015 French police in Paris charge Diack with corruption on suspicion of accepting bribes to cover up doping cases. Diack also charged with money laundering and conspiracy.

His legal advisor Habib Cisse and former IAAF anti-doping doctor Gabriel Dolle charged with corruption. The fall-out intensifies Nov 6, 2015 IAAF opens disciplinary proceedings against Pape Massata Diack, Balakhnichev, Alexei Melnikov, former chief coach of Russia's long distance walkers and runners, and Dolle. Wada's bombshell Nov 9, 2015 Wada publishes its report into the scandal, claiming that Russia had been guilty of state-sponsored doping on an industrial scale and that there had been a cover-up at the highest levels of the IAAF which had effectively 'sabotaged' the London 2012 Olympics. They call on Russian athletes to be banned from all competition. Russia respond Nov 10, 2015 Russia's sport minister Vitaly Mutko responds angrily to the claims. “You can’t just go on like this," he says. "You need to understand our sentiment. Sometimes it is just offensive.

The country has done so much to provide support for sports and still all the time we have to prove something to someone." Putin intervenes Nov 11, 2015 Russian president Vladimir Putin promises action against anyone found guilty of abetting a doping programme and orders an internal investigation. Russia provisionally banned from athletics Nov 13, 2015 The IAAF has announced it has provisionally suspended the All-Russia Athletic Federation (ARAF) as a member with immediate effect. Looking Back with Sebastian Coe: 'I hate being told I can't do something' | The Independent Olympics Looking Back with Sebastian Coe: 'I hate being told I can't do something' London's 2012 Olympic bid leader - now chairman of the organising committee - has always been good at winning races.

Mike Rowbottom concludes our series of interviews with key sporting figures of 2005 Wednesday 28 December 2005 00:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Online 'I said before that if we won I would carry the flame, and if we lost, I would carry the can' The London 2012 headquarters are 50 floors up at the top of the Canary Wharf tower, and the view from the office of the man widely credited with re-energising Britain's flagging Olympic bid and forcing it over the line in first place on 6 July is vertiginous. It seems appropriate that Seb Coe should now find himself located at a dizzying height. The chairman of the organising committee gives brief consideration to the question of whether he has ever felt tempted to take a running jump at the lights that twinkle so far below to escape the seismic pressure he endured in the last couple of years. "Thank God you can't open these windows," he says with a grin. "But no. I don't think so." Of course not.

Ever since he emerged as a slight but scarily competitive athlete in the late Seventies, Coe - or Lord Sebastian Newbold Coe as he does not prefer to be known - has demonstrated on innumerable occasions that he possesses a core as resilient as any of the cutlery that his dad, Peter, once helped engineer for Sheffield Steel. The factors which persuaded the International Olympic Committee to entrust the 2012 Games to the London bid, a decision which Coe believes is "probably the most important thing that has ever happened in British sport", are numerous. Endless attention to detail, a late but telling intervention from the Prime Minister in the hours before the final votes were cast, the endorsement of Nelson Mandela, an inspired presentation to International Olympic Committee delegates in which all spoke with genuine passion and the burden of the plea was carried by the voices of the children who would stand to benefit from a London Games. If more recent stories are to be believed, the errant finger of the Greek IOC delegate may also have played a part in the third round of voting in which Madrid was eliminated.

Holding it all together, however, was the will of a man who had already proved himself one of the great winners in his sport, an athlete who came back from a catastrophic defeat to Steve Ovett in the 1980 Moscow Olympics at 800 metres to win Ovett's own specialist event, the 1500m, an athlete who could not even run in 1983 because he was so ill, but who returned to the Olympic venue the following year and collected another silver and gold medal... Combined with that willpower was an innate political sense which allowed him to intuit the mysterious shifts and balances of power and influence within the IOC, a sense that had been refined by four years struggling against the tide as chief of staff for the Leader of the Opposition, William Hague. For all its Olympian height, Coe's room is a virtually anonymous ensemble of standard office equipment and utilitarian carpet tiles.

The only clues as to its occupant are an insouciantly displayed pennant from Les Comités Olympiques Européens (COE) and what looks like a spare floor tile propped against a wall with the message: "Congratulations on winning the 2012 Olympics from Milliken Carpet." There have been less prosaic plaudits for Coe since he clenched his fist in triumph in the ballroom of Singapore's Raffles Plaza Hotel - most recently when he was given a special award at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. In terms of historical precedents, you cannot help thinking of Sir Francis Drake, who set off on an endeavour of great risk and returned to the court of Queen Elizabeth laden with golden booty. Coe does not embrace the analogy with any great enthusiasm. "He was a pirate! Well, a privateer. Don't describe me as a pirate, it will fit every image L'Equipe have of me." But he put himself hugely at hazard by taking over from the previous leader of the bid, Barbara Cassani, in May last year when London was adjudged by the IOC to be running a poor third to Paris and Madrid.

"I said before I set off for Singapore that if we won I would carry the flame, and if we lost, I would carry the can," he recalls. "I would have done too, I reckon. I've always accepted if I ever lost a race I got blamed for it, and if I won a race I was the greatest tactician in the world. I think probably if I'd been hard-nosed and calculating about it I wouldn't have done it. I would have preferred the earlier months to have been slightly easier. But life is marginals, isn't it, at the best of times? It's about timing and belief." Fifty floors below, the London Evening Standard is on sale with a front-page headline "Betrayal of Our Olympics" and a story detailing the Commons row between the sports minister, Richard Caborn, and his Conservative counterpart, Hugh Robertson. Shortly before we sit down to talk, Coe has absorbed a sharply pointed television interview which invited him to join in the criticism of the Government for failing to include in its pre-Budget statement the extra £50m sought by the British Olympic Association to boost Games preparations.

It was an invitation he studiously avoided, although he did give his questioner to understand that the money would probably emerge in time, perhaps through different means. "This job has meant and will mean working very closely with this Government," he says. "It is about getting a lot of support when I need it but knowing also the right time to press those buttons. I know probably more than most people because I ran the life of a leader of the Opposition for four years. I know what those pressures were. Magnify those 10 times and you understand what the Prime Minister does. "So on the few occasions when I decided I needed some help I picked up the phone and basically I got it. But I would not have got that if I had been the 17th time I'd put through a call that week. "Secondly, if you look at the totality of the two-year campaign, it's very easy to say, well he did that, she did this, but you have to look at it holistically. I don't actually think there was a tipping point. At the end of two years IOC members were not simply voting on the passion of the presentation or the pinpoint accuracy of every word.

They were also voting on the tone and style that they had judged us by over those two years." Coe was a ubiquitous presence in the months leading to the vote, shaking hands in hotel lobbies all over the world as he clocked up more than 200,000 miles of air travel. He was the clubbable man at the bar. He was the respected former athlete. In Madrid earlier this year, at the European Indoor Championships, he wooed the influential IOC member Irina Szewinska with a charm that virtually smouldered. Like all natural politicians, the man is adaptable. "Very early on we decided that we didn't want to be seen thinking that anywhere was a no-go area for us," Coe says. "We wanted to break away from the view that there were alliances or that there was predilection for the Commonwealth to vote for us any more than there was a predilection in the Caribbean or Central America to simply to say we have a large Latin interest and therefore Madrid is going to get the votes. So we basically appealed to everybody, and we were strategic in the way that we did it, and we understood who we were talking to.

"I know the perceived wisdom is that had Madrid got through to the final they would have beaten London. I don't believe that. "The numbers show that the reasons Madrid didn't make it to the final is that some of those people who would normally have been expected to vote for Madrid at that point came to us, or had probably decide that this was probably a London-Paris decision. But we were always saying it was going to be close. I think people thought I was just coming out with the same old mantra, 'I'm sorry, it's just too close to call.' But four votes in 104 tells me I was right." Whether the Greek delegate's mistake put Madrid out of the running in the third round is now as academic - albeit fascinating - as the debate over whether England's third goal in the 1966 World Cup final crossed the line. The Cup, and the Games, have been won. What remains mysterious is Coe. Soon after he took up the Olympic challenge, his former team-mate Dave Moorcroft, now the chief executive of United Kingdom Athletics, described the double Olympic champion as the most driven personality he had ever encountered. Where does the drive come from? Is it lust for glory - or fear of failure?

"I don't know," Coe replies, "and I don't really think I'm probably even remotely capable of answering that question because what I think is normal may not be. I mean, I started track and field at the age of 11, I was told very early on that I would never be big enough to make an 800m runner, I would never be fast enough to be a miler. I failed an 11-plus and was basically shovelled off into a secondary modern where aspiration, I think, was fairly low. I hate being told I can't do something." Fifteen years ago, after he stepped off the track for the last time, he was collared by an announcer in front of the Crystal Palace crowd and questioned about whether he might be the next Prime Minister. To have put such a proposition to any other athlete would have been ludicrous, but with Coe, well, you felt it might just be worth a punt. Time and circumstance told against his political ambitions.

Voted in by the electors of Falmouth and Camborne in 1992, he went the way of most Tory MPs as Labour returned to power in the landslide election of 1997, and his four years spent subsequently in the service of Hague provided little other than frustration and a sore neck from where the Leader of the Opposition had applied an overly severe headlock while they were engaging in one of their occasional bouts of judo. Had the voters decided otherwise in 1997, where does he think he would be now? "I had made a commitment that being a constituency MP was what I did," he says. "I wouldn't have stood if I didn't want to stay there given a chance. I wasn't given a chance. I lost by about four per cent that night, and given that most Conservatives suffered swings of 14 or 15 per cent I thought that was pretty creditable. But the people spoke - and boy, did they speak that night - and I'm not very good at looking back. I recognise that that sometimes is a strength, it can sometimes be a weakness. But I do move on quite quickly." Coe has paid a personal price for his efforts on London's behalf.

Newspapers have run stories detailing his private life. And he has had to make hard decisions in a year when his mother, Angela, died of a disease of the nervous system. "It's been a difficult year for all of our family because my Mum died," he says. "It's my Mum's birthday today. I've just realised that. I saw her for the last time in hospital and I knew I was going abroad when I spoke to her and she knew I had to go. She was very sick, but she would not hear of me not going, and she died when I was overseas. I came back for the funeral and three hours after I was on a plane to Brisbane. In fairness, I haven't really had a chance to sit down and think about her very much. I'll probably do that in the next few weeks. It was great to come back and tell my Dad about the good news from Singapore. I just wish she'd been there.

Because of all people, she really did understand what all this was about." Constituency Spotlight: Falmouth - Telegraph Constituency Spotlight: Falmouth By Sean O'Neill 12:00AM BST 29 May 2001 ON the campaign trail in Cornwall last week, Michael Portillo performed a curious piece of political circumnavigation. Travelling between Penzance and Liskeard, he avoided setting foot in the marginal constituency of Falmouth & Camborne, something that can only be done by flying over, sailing around or driving through without stopping. Odd behaviour, considering Falmouth is ranked 33 on the Tory list of targets and regarded by all three main parties as winnable. Sebastian Coe, since ennobled and now William Hague's right-hand man, lost to Labour's Candy Atherton in 1997 by 2,600 votes, deprived of victory by the 4,000 electors who supported the Referendum Party and the UK Independence Party. Yet Lord Coe and his boss also conspicuously failed to show their faces in Falmouth earlier in the week.

The explanation for the leadership's reluctance to fly the blue flag in a seat held by the Tories from 1970 to 1997 is the ardent and unabashed Euroscepticism of Nick Serpell, the candidate here. Mr Serpell shares Lady Thatcher's belief that Britain should never join the Euro. He then goes a step further, arguing for a referendum on continued membership of the European Union. Mr Serpell, 50, a BBC producer, said: "I've stuck my head over the parapet because I passionately believe what I say and because I think it's strange that we're committing ourselves to stay out of the Euro for just five years." Related Articles Mr Serpell's views carry a strong appeal in a county which has a large number of elderly voters, and where fishermen and small farmers are deeply hostile to all things European. Cornwall's distrust of Brussels is slightly greater than its distrust of Westminster. Mr Serpell shares the view that London is remote and supports a Cornish assembly. But he cares little about upsetting Central Office. He has no desire for a frontbench career and wants to follow the example of independent Cornish members such as the late David Penhaligon, former Liberal MP for Truro.

Mr Serpell's emphasis on his Cornish birth and his plain-speaking style - "No bullshit, honestly," is his pledge to one waverer - are well received on the doorstep. Canvassing in the village of Ponsanooth, the promises of support are plentiful, though his confident progress is momentarily bewildered by the voter who announces he is "voting Labour 'cos I want to see that John Major back in power". Another constituent, Mark Kessell, 57, who voted Liberal Democrat in 1997, says he will return to the Tory fold "because it's nice to see a bloody Cornish candidate". But he adds: "I do think it's a shame you had to have Hague, he's not the man for the job." A Tory gain is far from certain here. Despite Mr Serpell's anti-Euro stance, the UKIP are opposing him with John Browne, the former Tory MP for Winchester. There is a large Labour support base in Camborne and Redruth, and Miss Atherton, 45, is probably still in pole position. She said: "I'm getting a very warm response.

Four years ago people didn't really know me, but now I'm Candy to everyone." At Falmouth rugby club car boot sale, Miss Atherton encounters many more supporters than opponents. Thomas Nancholas seeks a kiss and declares: "She's doing a good job." But from her stall laden with home-grown produce, Pam Langford says she can never vote Labour. Mrs Langford, 68, said: "I shall be voting Liberal, as always. I'm a Methodist, I was brought up a Liberal and I will always be a Liberal." Mrs Langford is part of the strong Liberal tradition which helped return Liberal Democrats in all the Cornish seats except Falmouth. Julian Brazil, the Lib Dem candidate, hopes he can augment the core vote with disaffected Tories and disillusioned Labour supporters. Mr Brazil, 37, said: "This is in many ways an old Labour seat. Cornwall is poor, wages are low, there has been less money for schools and hospitals, the water rates are the highest in the country. "Meanwhile Conservatives are finding it hard to relate to Hague and are turning to us to get Labour out." But all the parties are meeting a substantial number of non-voters.

Mr Brazil said: "It's not so much apathy as a conscious decision not to vote." 1997 Result: C Atherton (Lab) 18,151; S Coe (Con) 15,463; T Jones (LD) 13,512; P de Savary (Ref) 3,534; J Geach (ind Lab) 1,691; P Holmes (Lib) 527; R Smith (UKIP) 355; R. Lewarne (Mebyon Kernow, Cornish Nationalist) 238; G Glitter (Loony) 161. Lab maj: 2,688 Constituency | Truro Falmouth Labour News Truro Falmouth Labour News Constituency For information about current constituency issues see news . The new constituency of Truro and Falmouth includes all of the former Carrick District Council area except Mount Hawke district ward. This means that it covers all or part of 22 Cornwall Council wards: 1. Chacewater and Kenwyn; 2.

Falmouth Arwenack, 3. Falmouth Boslowick, 4. Falmouth Gyllyngvase, 5. Falmouth Penwerris, 6. Falmouth Trescobeas; 7. Feock and Kea; 8. Ladock, St Clement and St Erme; 9. Penryn East and Mylor, 10. Penryn West; 11. Perranporth, 12. Probus, 13. Roseland; 14. Threemilestone and Gloweth; 15. Truro Boscawen, 16. Truro Moresk, 17. Truro Tregolls, 18. Truro Trehaverne; most of 19. St Agnes, and 20. Newlyn and Goonhavern; plus part of 21. Mabe and 22. Stithians. Some of our members are very interested in local Labour history. This page has more information about Labour politics and MPs for this area since the 1930s.

The new seat of Truro and Falmouth recreates the first constituency won by Labour in Cornwall. In the 1930s, the St Austell born, high-flying Oxford historian A.L. (Leslie) Rowse (1903-97) fought the constituency of Penryn and Falmouth twice for Labour in 1931 and 1935. The young man who in the 1920s jotted notes in his diary on ‘the idea of a Labour university’, once said ‘all that I want to be is a spokesman for the Cornish people’. Rowse took the Labour Party from third to second place in Penryn and Falmouth at the 1935 general election, and continued his active involvement with the local Labour Party here until 1941. By 1937, the constituency of Penryn and Falmouth, which included Truro, held sixty per cent of Labour Party members in Cornwall. Rowse was a regular contributor to the Cornish Labour News, which was edited by local journalist Claude Berry, who worked for 34 years at, and later became editor of, the West Briton.

‘This car is like the Tory Party – out of date’. Labour’s 1945 landslide general election victory saw the return of Cornwall’s first Labour MP, Evelyn King (1907-94), for the Penryn and Falmouth constituency, which included Truro. During the 1945 election, King – who was a headteacher before he became an MP – was driven round the constituency by a former pupil in an old Rolls Royce, with a sign on the back saying ‘This car is like the Tory Party – out of date’. King subsequently lost some popularity among Labour Party supporters in Cornwall, because he first moved to stand in Dorset at the 1950 general election, and later switched to the Tory Party before being elected as the MP for Dorset South. From 1948 to 1959, Labour’s Cornish Voice replaced the Cornish Labour News which had ceased publication when war broke out. It published articles by Cornwall’s Labour MPs and other national politicians, with photos, cartoons, and reports of local meetings. The newspaper sold to supporters, with local Labour Party members developing delivery and collection rounds of up to 100 people each.

At the general election in February 1950, campaigning on new constituency boundaries, Labour overtook the Liberal vote share in Cornwall for the first time. Frank Harold Hayman (1894-1966) – a former Cornwall County Council clerk who worked for the National Association of Local Government Officers, in 1945 stood unsuccessfully for the old Camborne constituency which was less good for Labour than Penryn and Falmouth. In 1950, Hayman was elected as Labour MP for the new Falmouth and Camborne seat. Hayman won this seat for Labour at five general elections, serving as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Labour Party and opposition leader Hugh Gaitskell in 1959-63. The Falmouth Labour Party agent and treasurer J.H.Bennetts – who organised the increasingly successful general election campaigns of Rowse, King, and Hayman – was awarded an MBE in 1951 for services to the Labour and Trade Union movement.

Photo by Tim Green In May 1952, one week after the Cornwall County Council elections, Falmouth Labour Party paid £1000 to purchase 4 Webber Hill in Penwerris, one of three county wards held by Labour at the time. Falmouth Labour Club opened to provide a social meeting place and political education for working people, occupying the ground floor and hillside garden. The upstairs rooms were used for meetings of the local Party, and office accommodation occupied initially by Michael Steuart, who was the longest-serving editor of Labour’s Cornish Voice from February 1952. Photo by Tim Green Clement Atlee MP’s brother Tom lived in the constituency, who Labour Party members remember hosting social events at his house near Devoran on the Falmouth to Truro road. Harold Wilson MP was a frequent visitor, bringing his young family to see his parents who lived locally, and purchasing his bungalow on St Mary’s in the Scilly Isles in 1959. In 1950, Wilson as President of the Board of Trade addressed a Truro audience of 200 at a public meeting. The first Labour Mayor of Truro, W.A.

Philips, held office in 1919 – he was the first Labour Mayor in the South West as well as Cornwall. Truro voters elected Cornwall’s first Labour MP in 1945; but following the boundary changes at the 1950 general election, Labour came second when the Tories took the seat. As Labour entered its sixth year of Government in 1951, local Labour Party membership soared. Throughout the early 1950s, Labour’s Cornish Voice published reports of active Labour Party branches in the Truro constituency of the day at St Dennis, Foxhole, Nanpean, St Austell, St Blazey, St Stephen, Grampound Road, Tregony, Truro, Newlyn East, Goonhavern, Perranporth, St Agnes, Mount Hawke, Chacewater, Portloe, and St Mawes. A ‘Housewives Voice’ article in Labour’s Cornish Voice in November 1952, boasted that the Truro Labour Party women’s section had been in existence for more than 30 years.

Spurred on by the example of Falmouth, in the early 1950s a Truro building fund was started, with the objective of buying 30 River Street, where the Party held its meetings in rooms above Tremletts the newsagents; and Truro Labour Party women’s section organised regular fundraising events for the building fund. In the photo above, Mrs Claude Berry (wife of the West Briton editor) is standing at the back; the photo was taken by Joan Sloman who together with her husband Dennis is still a Truro Labour Party member today. At the October 1951 general election, more people voted Labour than Tory, but the Tories won more seats. Commenting on national radio on the election which ended his six years as Prime Minister, Clement Atlee MP said simply ‘Our defeat is not due to any falling away of Labour support, but to the fact that in most constituencies Liberals voted Tory, not Labour.’ In Truro in 1951, Labour’s vote share rose to 44.3%; but the Tories held the seat.

Labour’s candidate for Truro in 1951 and 1955 was Jack Newby, a primary school teacher at Goonhavern. In the 1960s, Jack Newby published a novel ‘The Sitting Member’, in which the plot revolves around a Labour MP’s general election campaign in Truro. Thanks to the generosity of Betty Newby, Jack Newby’s widow who lives at Perranporth, Truro and Falmouth Labour Party helped to deposit copies of Labour’s Cornish Voice in the Modern British Collection at the British Library. Copies of these editions are also held locally in Truro at the Royal Cornwall Museum Courtney Library, a few doors along from 30 River Street. In 1966, following the death of Harold Hayman, Labour’s John Dunwoody (1929-2006) was elected as the MP for Falmouth and Camborne, but lost the seat in 1970. In 1966, Labour reduced the Tory majority in Truro to 1,608; but the seat continued to be held by the Tories until the October 1974 general election.

Harold Wilson with journalists during a holiday on the Scilly Isles in the 1960s. MPs elected in this constituency area, 1945-2005 Penryn & Falmouth, included Truro

Question: Before being ennobled Lord Sebastian Coe was MP for which constituency?
Answer: Falmouth