BBC Sports Personality of the Year

[Publius Ovidius]

Rooooooooooooooot

 

[drew]

I think you're defending the indefensible. Coe was, for 8 years, at the top of an organisation that was overseeing (and colluding with) a doping scandal that was going on at an industrial scale. The man he worked with side-by-side for all that time, who he referred to as "the spirit of athletics", was taking bungs from the Russians to turn a blind eye to it all (this was a man who had previous, after taking bungs from a sports marketing company who were in negotiations with the IAAF at the time over a sponsorship deal).

Coe was Vice President for 8 years while this was happening, and yet he seems as "shocked" as everyone else at the scale of it. Sorry, that's more than a vague whiff of something not being "quite right". He SHOULD have been a whistle-blower. But we shouldn't be surprised - first and foremost, he's a politician. Power and influence. He's in it for himself.

I don't know who would be better at the job. But somebody who ISN'T a Tory MP would probably be a start, I should think.

I think you don't like Coe, possibly because of his political persuasion and because of that you have decided he is to blame. Yes, he was VP but for most of those 8 years he was focused on London. As for working side by side, do you think he knew everything that was going on? You don't think that the president might have been able to keep things from him. There were, I believe, four VPs. I take it you think they are all to blame. If they're all to blame, surely their assistants knew. And if their assistants knew then so did the ones below them.

If he had had details that the president was involved, yes he might have blown the whistle but then wouldn't the likelihood be that there would be some charade by those corrupt in charge and Coe would have been out and with no influence to change anything. Under Coe's watch, a major iternational team have been excluded from competition, something that has never happened before as far as I'm aware. Several other countries have had their doping accreditation removed with others being told to get their house in order. Not sure I've seen that before.

Is Coe whiter than white? I don't know but I suspect he is a better shade of white than most of the viable alternatives.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

All this does is remind me of the year Giggs won it.

I was FUMING.

 

[Vegas Seagull]

All this does is remind me of the year Giggs won it.

I was FUMING.

33/1.....great bet, who in the World can get more votes than a Man U player!? (Tip If Rooney gets nominated......)

 

[Easy 10]

I think you don't like Coe, possibly because of his political persuasion and because of that you have decided he is to blame. Yes, he was VP but for most of those 8 years he was focused on London. As for working side by side, do you think he knew everything that was going on? You don't think that the president might have been able to keep things from him. There were, I believe, four VPs. I take it you think they are all to blame. If they're all to blame, surely their assistants knew. And if their assistants knew then so did the ones below them.

If he had had details that the president was involved, yes he might have blown the whistle but then wouldn't the likelihood be that there would be some charade by those corrupt in charge and Coe would have been out and with no influence to change anything. Under Coe's watch, a major iternational team have been excluded from competition, something that has never happened before as far as I'm aware. Several other countries have had their doping accreditation removed with others being told to get their house in order. Not sure I've seen that before.

Is Coe whiter than white? I don't know but I suspect he is a better shade of white than most of the viable alternatives.

I had no particular feelings on Coe one way or the other prior to this. And I haven't decided that he is to blame for it, no single individual is, although this went right to the very top. But he was, for EIGHT YEARS, working within the upper echelons of an organisation that had failed to pick on a doping scandal the sheer scale of which has never been seen before in sport - in fact worse than failed to pick up on it, actually turned out to be colluding with it. Yet Coe spins the old Blatter line: "Nuffin to do with me, how was I supposed to know whats going on ? I'm only a Vice President". That's not really good enough though, is it ?

When news came out about this impending report, Coe's initial reaction was that it was "a declaration of war on Athletics". That just about said it all - he was preparing for a fight, preparing to make denials. His knee-jerk was "we're going to prove this is wrong". But when it was published, the sheer weight of evidence blew any notion of that completely out of the water and he was forced to backtrack. London 2012 has been forever tainted now, as a direct result. 18 Russian medals for its track and field athletes. Where would or should those medals have gone otherwise ? Even if they alter the results now, the damage has already been done.

So in light of that, you can hardly give him personally the credit for (provisionally) excluding Russia from competition. Any other decision would have been completely unjust and farcical. Is someone who was apparently so utterly ignorant of what was going on in Athletics during his time as VP really the right person to clean the sport up from here on ? Doesn't exactly strike me as a guy who's had his finger on the pulse these last few years.

 

[LlcoolJ]

Not to mention the fact that he's a total bell.

 

[Seagull58]

Yup. And then watched on as the Russians cheated their way up the 2012 medals table as a direct result of the IAAF's years of inactivity and then collusion with the Russian Athletics Federation and its Government to dispose of its athletes doping samples. Stinks to high heaven, and has resulted in multiple athletes being cheated out of medals they would have won. And Coe was there in a senior position of authority through all of it. He failed in his job, abjectly.

Sorry, that's not good enough. If that was indeed the case, then he allowed London 2012 to go ahead in the knowledge that athletes were drugged up to the eyeballs, and did nothing. In fact Coe initally came out swinging, in full-on DENIAL mode before the extent of the cheating was fully revealed by the publishing of that report. Now its all the mealy-mouthed crap we hear from politicians promising "root and branch reforms" blah blah.

If he was was truly clueless that all this was going on, then he's not fit for purpose. If he knew about it, then he's a disgrace who should be out on his ear already. Nothing I have seen from him convinces me he's the right man for the job.

Steve Ovett is, and always has been, the man.

 

[Seagull58]

Sir Ben Ainslie. Parachuted into an America's Cup team that was 8-1 down in a first-to-9 series as tactician and produced 8 wins in a row. Surely one of the greatest sporting feats in history, not to mention 4 Olympic gold medals and 1 silver in his CV.

 

[Gwylan]

I had no particular feelings on Coe one way or the other prior to this. And I haven't decided that he is to blame for it, no single individual is, although this went right to the very top. But he was, for EIGHT YEARS, working within the upper echelons of an organisation that had failed to pick on a doping scandal the sheer scale of which has never been seen before in sport - in fact worse than failed to pick up on it, actually turned out to be colluding with it. Yet Coe spins the old Blatter line: "Nuffin to do with me, how was I supposed to know whats going on ? I'm only a Vice President". That's not really good enough though, is it ?

And it now it seems he may have indulged in a bit of questionable behaviour over the 2021 World Championships. As one of the administrator's said "Asked how he felt about the whole 2021 process, Eriksson said: "It smells and it has to be investigated. That's for the sport, for everybody involved."

Eriksson also cautioned Coe on his association with Nike, which is reported to be worth around £100,000 per year to the double Olympic gold medallist.

He said: "I'd say it doesn't help at all, I'd say it's a major problem."

 

[knocky1]

Nike Headquarters in Oregon. The Nike Oregon Project is where Salazaar trains Mo Farah. Seb Coe has always defended Mo.

 

[KT17]

Calde?!

Jessica Ennis is odds on to win it, after winning world champs.

Followed by
A Murray
L Hamilton
C Froome
W Rooney!?!?!
M Farah
A McCoy
Joe Root
T Fury
G Bale

Fury 66/1 could be interesting if he manages to beat Vlad Klitschko

After the fight I had a long shot punt on Fury at 8's - I would love him to win just to see the BBC's discomfort...

 

[BensGrandad]

my top 3 order would be
Lewis Hamilton
Jessica Ennis
Andy Murray

although not a great lover of any of their sports.

 

[8ace]

Murray odds on now

 

[LlcoolJ]

I read that Joe Root hasn't even been shortlisted. If so this is a disgrace.

 

[drew]

I read that Joe Root hasn't even been shortlisted. If so this is a disgrace.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/dec/01/joe-root-bbc-sports-personality-england-cricket

 

[vegster]

It's going to between Murray,Hamilton and Hill-Ennis but thanks to the Davis Cup victory I reckon Plug will edge it. Meaningless programme anyway, from a time long past, see also Question of Sport.

 

[LlcoolJ]

Interesting article and agree that some cricket on terrestrial tv would be helpful. However I keep reading about the death of cricket, clubs struggling and no kids playing the sport. That couldn't be further from the truth here in Yorkshire! And everyone knows who Joe Root is.....

Crap programme anyway but he really should have been shortlisted.

 

[vegster]

Interesting article and agree that some cricket on terrestrial tv would be helpful. However I keep reading about the death of cricket, clubs struggling and no kids playing the sport. That couldn't be further from the truth here in Yorkshire! And everyone knows who Joe Root is.....

Crap programme anyway but he really should have been shortlisted.

Yorkshire are on the crest of a wave at the moment but lots of other counties are struggling to get bums on seats. Wonderful performance from Root this year but it would be interesting to see the number of innings played by him in 2015 to get all those runse compared to say, Chris Broad when he was world record run scorer I think in the 80's