Coe's sprint finish
Olympics, Issue 1638
Last month Coe visited Budapest, Dubai, New Delhi and Mumbai, where he not only met the all-powerful Tata Corporation but was also granted an audience with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, which just might lead to the 2036 Olympics being staged in India.
Coe and his six rivals for the presidency are competing for the votes of the "Lords of the Rings", the 111 members of the IOC, which will all be decided at a meeting in Costa Navarino, Greece, in March.
À la Modi
India's Olympic bid is a classic piece of Modi egotism, centred on the cricket stadium in Ahmedabad, which bears the prime minister's name and, with a capacity of 132,000 spectators, is considered the largest stadium in the world.
Meanwhile, sport in India remains mired in corruption and controversy, and the entirely non-transparent Olympic host city bidding process is seen to be making an already bad situation worse. The IOC recently froze a $1m grant from the Olympic Solidarity Fund, intended for India's athletes, due to "ongoing internal disputes and leadership issues".
Tata for now
In Mumbai Coe was to meet Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Group. World Athletics, the international governing body where Coe has been in charge since 2015, has already signed up Tata as a sponsor.
The TOPs ("the Olympic partners") programme of sponsors – who effectively foot the bill for IOC members' extravagant lifestyles – have been pursuing the Indian industrial giants for some time without success. As TOPs recently lost Toyota, Bridgestone and Panasonic from the roster of sponsors, were Coe able to suggest that he, as IOC president, might pour Tata's cash into Olympic coffers, it could clinch him a few key votes.
Kirsty work
Coe was also due to meet Nita Ambani, matriarch of another hugely wealthy and influential Indian family of industrialists, owners of the Reliance conglomerate. Ambani is also the first Indian woman to be made a member of the IOC. She has been fêted by several of Coe's rivals for the Olympic presidency, including Kirsty Coventry, the Zimbabwean who was an early favourite for world sport's top job.
During the Paris Games in the summer, Ambani stayed at Hotel George V, and Coventry was frequently her guest. But Olympic watchers reckon Coventry has been losing ground as the influence of her principal backer, Thomas Bach, soon to be ex-president of the IOC, has waned.
On his visit to the sub-continent, Coe, unlike any of his rivals, would have been able to emphasise his own Indian ancestry, on his mother Angela's side. It could be that, as in his days on the track, Coe has timed his sprint for the finish just right.
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