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Coe defends Eugene amid probe
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French prosecutors have opened an investigation into the decision to award the 2021 track world championships to the American city of Eugene without an open bidding process.
The financial prosecutors鈥 office in Paris aims to determine whether corruption, money laundering or other crimes may have been committed in the IAAF鈥檚 decision and, if so, whether prosecuting them might fall within French jurisdiction.
The office said yesterday that its probe, opened on December 1, does not target any specific individuals at this stage. It is also separate from another, more advanced criminal investigation being led by French magistrates into suspected corruption by former IAAF president Lamine Diack and two other people who worked for the sport鈥檚 governing body: lawyer Habib Cisse and former anti-doping chief Gabriel Dolle.
In France, preliminary probes that uncover wrongdoing can lead to a more formal criminal investigation or prosecutors can later close them down if they find no evidence.
鈥淲e have suspicions, otherwise we wouldn鈥檛 open an investigation,鈥 a prosecutor said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 鈥淲e are within our rights to have a look. But there may be normal reasons (for the Eugene award) that will lift the suspicions.鈥
Diack鈥檚 successor, Sebastian Coe, yesterday again defended the selection of Eugene. He told the BBC that it wasn鈥檛 the first city the IAAF has picked without open bidding. He also said the IAAF鈥檚 ruling council saw the first world championships to be held in the United States as a chance to break into that market.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 not without precedent,鈥 Coe said. 鈥淲e have selected cities before not within a bidding cycle.
鈥淏y 23 to 25 votes my council decided that this was, for the foreseeable future, the best opportunity to get the world athletics championships into the US.鈥
The prosecutors鈥 probe follows intense media scrutiny of Coe鈥檚 role in the Eugene decision. The former Olympic running champion was, until last month, a long-time ambassador for Nike, which is headquartered outside Portland, about 160 kilometers from Eugene.
His dual roles for Nike and the IAAF led to questions about conflicts of interest, particularly after the BBC last month published an email in which a Nike executive wrote that he discussed Eugene with Coe three months before the surprise IAAF selection of the small Oregon city without a bidding process.
Coe 鈥渕ade clear his support for 2021 in Eugene鈥, wrote the Nike executive, Craig Masback. Coe has insisted he 鈥渄id not lobby anyone鈥. The Swedish city of Gothenburg, which was also vying for the 2021 worlds, has called for a probe.
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