No suspense. Sebastian Coe (pictured above), 66, will be re-elected this Thursday 17 August for a third – and final – four-year term as President of World Athletics. The Briton, in office since 2015, is the only candidate for the top job. He is expected to win a large number of votes, if not unanimously, as he did in the previous election, in Doha in 2019. The vote will take place at the Hungexpo Congress Centre in Budapest, two days before the opening of the World Athletics Championships (19 to 27 August). There will be no suspense for the presidency. But the election for the four vice-president positions will be no exception. In the absence of Sergey Bubka, first vice-president of World Athletics since 2015 – the Ukrainian has decided not to stand for re-election and no longer sits on the body’s board – eight candidates will be vying for the positions. Three of them are seeking re-election: Nawaf Bin Mohammed Al Saud (Saudi Arabia), Geoff Gardner (Norfolk Islands), and Ximena Restrepo (Chile). The other five candidates are Raúl Chapado (Spain), Abby Hoffman (Canada), Antti Pihlakoski (Finland), Adille Sumariwalla (India), and Jackson Tuwei (Kenya).
