TELEGRAF FACE TO FACE WITH THE FIRST MAN OF WORLD ATHLETICS: World athletics must rejuvenate at all levels!

In addition to the excellent results of our competitors in recent years, further evidence that Serbian athletics gets an important place in the world is the fact that Lord Sebastian Coe as the new president of the World Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) paid the first official visit to our country.

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Sebastian Coe visited the new hall: Serbia contributes much to the development of athletics! (PHOTO)

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The occasion was the Balkan Congress in Vrsac, the event that in our country has not yet been organized. With their arrival, the double Olympic champion has shown that he appreciates and supports all efforts of Serbia to become an important center for the "queen of sports".

Winner of four Olympic medals (two gold, two silver) as a president of IAAF gave support to Serbia to improve the sport.

When we first spoke to him in 2013, Coe said that the Serbian athletics is strong. And now?

ATHLETIC LEGEND VISIT MIGRANTS: Sergey Bubka and Sebastian Coe in a park near the bus station!

- It is stronger compared to then when I said that! We see how Serbian athletes perform. It's not just a medal, but also placements in the semi-finals and finals. You can see that I was right, which is generally not usual for the president of the federation - laughingly said Lord Coe, who, during his career, broke the records 11 times running as a middle-distance runner.

He himself was surprised when at the end of the press conference in Vrsac his friend and president of the Athletic Federation of Serbia, Veselin Jevrosimovic said that Serbia will apply for hosting World Indoor Championships in 2020.

- I was a slightly surprised, because Veselin and I traveled together from the airport to the hotel, and he did not say anything. I guess that he kept that for the conference, which is a good thing. It was a nice surprise.

Our country will have his support in obtaining hosting, Coe assured us.

- There will certainly be other candidates, but this is a strong recognition of the sport played in the hall. Indoor competitions are very important. Participants are close to the audience, so the young people better understand the race. I won such a competition. Indoor Championships are also good for innovation, we can experiment as in the laboratory before transferring the novelties to competitions in stadiums.

Foto: Marko Todorović

When it comes to organizational process for the European Championship in Belgrade in 2017, the British athletics legend has no doubt that everything will be just fine. On Thursday, he also assured that the works on the athletic hall in Banjica are going well.

- I'm satisfied. Many cities and countries promise that the infrastructure is going to be good. All I heard was encouraging - he said.

By taking over the four-year mandate at the helm of world athletics, Coe faces a number of challenges.

- I know from experience that the primary and most important challenge for all of us who work in sport is to engage young people, because today there are too many things that do not go the right way. Sport should understand the life of young people.

In his view, countries in the Balkans have the potential to do so, and he will, as the president of the IAAF, cooperate to improve athletics in this region.

- No question about it. The Balkan region is quite diversified. On the one hand you have Serbia that works on the infrastructure, with a government that is willing to cooperate. Soon I will go to Albania that needs help with just one facility. Resources and political responsibility are not the same everywhere, and my job is to level out so that these differences become smaller.

Foto: Marko Todorović

Asked who could break the record next year at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Coe said:

- I hope, but it is difficult to predict. In London, not everyone could assume that David Rudisha would set a new world record on 800 meters. Simply, sport is unpredictable. But if you create such conditions, the climate in which the sportsmen feel good, then they will have a positive attitude, and only such people can compete at a higher level.

In the end, the man who was in this region on several occasions in the course of his rich career has grown to love our country.

- The first time I was in Zagreb in 1981 and in Belgrade I competed in 1989. Your country is beautiful. It makes great steps in various fields, such as innovation, entrepreneurship, cultural influence. This becomes part of the world in which young people want to be - concluded Lord Sebastian Coe.

(Telegraf.co.uk / Bojana Mekić)