Sebastian Coe pledges radical reform in race to become next IOC president

Sebastian Coe, pictured overlooking the London 2012 Olympic site, said ‘too much power is in the hands of too few people’ at the IOC. Photograph: Maja Smiejkowska/PA

Sebastian Coe has promised to ­radically transform the International Olympic Committee if he is elected its next president in March – and says his track record of delivering at the ­London 2012 Games and at World Athletics shows he is the right choice for the leading job in sport.

In launching a manifesto that ­positions him as a reform candidate who will ensure the IOC does far more to innovate, protect female sport, allow more debate, and get more young people into Olympic sport, Coe invoked the early 2000s when he was able persuade the IOC to bring the 2012 Games to London.