They are very pleased to be here, yes, we could have done with more spectators in the stadium but there are pretty understandable reasons why that has been a challenge.

Sebastian Coe

Categorized in : Sports

We believe that ultimately these changes will be beneficial not only to Kenyan and East African distance runners, but to our leading athletes around the globe, because it will result in a stronger, higher-profile, commercially-successful annual showcase series for our sport, and it's important to remember that the IAAF will be creating other continental competition opportunities outside the Diamond League as we redesign the global calendar.

Trust is not going to come over night, it is not as if you make five changes and trust will follow in two weeks' time, it may be the case that trust does not return until way beyond my term in office.

I am president of an international federation which is under serious investigations and I represent a sport under intense scrutiny, my vision is to have a sport that attracts more young people. The average age of those watching track and field is 55 years old. This is not sustainable.

I have sought advice from the IAAF's Ethics Committee to review my interests and was told I could retain my positions in Nike and CSM as long as I do not seek to influence any decisions that could influence them, i'm grateful for that advice but it is clear that perception and reality have become horribly mangled.

I think it should be cleared up once and for all how sick this is, there is a huge lack of morals and transparency that is wrong and unacceptable.

I did not lobby anyone on behalf of the Eugene 2021 bid, after their narrow defeat (to Doha) for the 2019 world championships I encouraged them to re-enter another bidding cycle as they had a strong bid.

We will get the change we want and only then will Russian athletes return to international competition, this is not about politics, this is about the protection of clean athletes. I cannot overstate the feeling around the conference call this evening about sending the strongest possible message that we can.

To regain membership to the IAAF the new federation would have to fulfil a list of criteria, an inspection team will be led by Independent Chair Rune Andersen, an independent international anti-doping expert (Norwegian) and three members of the IAAF Council who will be appointed in the next few days.

Given the cloud that hangs over our association this is clearly not the time for the global athletics family to be gathering in celebration.

It is slightly the territory we have inherited and one of my responsibilities is to move us off that territory, we are more than just a discussion about test tubes, blood and urine.

We shouldn't be concerned because we have a sport that is adorned by some of the most outrageously superhuman, talented individuals in any sport, our challenge is to make sure the public know that there are other athletes in our sport.

That is ideal but I am also aware that there are some technical issues which sometimes mean it is not possible, where it is possible, we should always look to try and help them.

I was dismayed to see the interpretation put on our motives, our judgments and our actions, there is nothing in the history of our sport in the last 15 or 20 years other than us being on the cutting edge of either trying to develop the science of weeding out the cheats or taking the actions appropriate to finding them.

Of course we have to utilize every ounce of technology available to us, because our challenge is always to protect the rights of the clean athletes to compete knowing that they are competing on a level playing field, that every athlete starts out equally with an opportunity to win or to lose.

We have got some of the highest profile names out of the sport in the last few years, this has caused us intense embarrassment but we have always taken the view that we would rather have short-term embarrassment and protect the clean athletes.

We have led the way on out-of-competition independent testing, we have led the way on laboratories, we were the first sport to have arbitration panels, we introduced blood passports in 2009 because we wanted to elevate the science around weeding out the cheats.

The assumption that we are not sharing this information is wholly... by Sebastian Coe

The assumption that we are not sharing this information is wholly false.

What has angered me and angered our sport is the betrayal that we are doing absolutely nothing when we have led the way on this and have consistently done so, every athlete at the world championships in 2011 and 2013 was subject to blood tests, that's unprecedented. We spend two million dollars a year( on anti-doping) and we are not a rich sport, we have 10 full time professionals.

We have got some of the highest profile names out of the sport in the last few years, this hasn't been easy for us, this has caused us intense embarrassment but we have always taken the view that we would rather have short-term embarrassment and protect the clean athletes.

I think you'd be pretty surprised if I did sit here and was sanguine about that, i personally have big problems with it.