Mumbai: Sebastian Coe, the only man in Olympic history to win back-to-back 1,500m gold medals who heads World Athletics and is in the running to be the next International Olympic Committee (IOC) president, brought up the Perth Test. “It gives me great pleasure to watch Australia suffer in cricket,” the Briton joked.

Cricket wasn’t the only subject of interest during Coe’s visit to India that concluded in Mumbai with World Athletics and Tata Communications presenting a roadmap into their five-year global broadcasting services collaboration. In a chat with HT, Coe spoke about receiving a formal bid by India to stage the U-20 World Championships in 2028, the country’s interest in hosting the 2036 Olympics, and Neeraj Chopra teaming up with Czech javelin world record holder Jan Zelezny. Excerpts:

A lot more Indians have started to follow athletics over the last few years. Do you hope to see India host a few major events?

Well, I was very pleased to be given a formal application to bid for the U-20 World Championships in 2028. So, that is moving in the right direction. This is an ambitious federation and an ambitious government that also understands the importance of major sporting events.

India has also expressed formal interest in hosting the 2036 Olympics. Your view.

Look, I’m excited about any city that wants to stage the ultimate event. It comes with some health checks. It’s a complicated process, and I’m not just talking about the bid. I’m talking about the delivery. That’s seven years of operational integration. That’s seven years of building carefully a team that can do that. It’s about integration into the organising committee of government departments and various agencies. It’s probably the most complicated piece of project management known to man, and certainly the most challenging piece of project management that any city undertakes under normal circumstances.

From your experience, what are some of the prerequisites that go with investing in a project like this?

All those things I mentioned. Political unanimity — it never wants to become a political dog fight. You need willing and able people. You need a critical mass of skills to do that. And sometimes you have to recruit those skills from countries that are familiar with delivering events. If you look at the (2012) London Games, we had Australians in there, we had people from all over the world that have done a Games before or have that particular expertise helping us. Although it is a domestic Games and is delivered in a very clear territory, you really need global experience as well.

Your take on Neeraj teaming up with Zelezny...

I’m lucky I know both of them. I know Jan very well, he’s a good friend. And obviously, simply on distance, he’s arguably the best javelin thrower of all time. I actually watched him compete and throw some extraordinary distances. I know how committed he is and he’s become a very good coach. He’s become a real student of his sport. And that’s what will be to the benefit of any athlete. That goes for Neeraj too.

At this stage of Neeraj’s career, how much of a change can a coach bring from a technical viewpoint?

In technical events, it’s a huge contribution. It’s pretty simple — if you don’t have world-class coaches, you’re probably not going to have world-class athletes. And the best coaches are not just piling the work on. The best coaches understand as much about the people they’re working with as they do about the technicalities of the event. So, Jan will be a very, very good addition for Neeraj. You can only take one step at a time. But Neeraj is ambitious. I trust the athlete and I trust them both to have figured out why they’re wanting to work together.

You’ve introduced the World Athletics Ultimate Championship as a new season-ending event from 2026. It’s meant to be a snappier event. Having seen that trend across sports, is that the way forward for athletics too?

It signals our willingness to review the product that we’ve got. And recognise that television and eyeballs are very important. It’s a changed format... three nights, three hours roughly per night, 16 of the top track and field athletes, male and female. Straight finals for the field, semis and final for the track. Not every discipline (is included), because we’ve got to get the flow through in three hours. That has its challenges, but it’s made us think a lot about our sport.

We want it to be more engaging. We want to recruit new audiences. We want to recruit people that may never have watched athletics before (through) what we call big eventers. Not everybody is a passionate follower of tennis, but they’re going to watch Wimbledon. Not everybody is going to be into cricket, but they’re sure as hell going to watch India-Australia. So, we want to tap into what we call the big-event market as well.

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