Athletics is more than drugs, blood and urine alone,says Sebastian Coe

There is a bloody-minded streak that runs through Sebastian Coe like words in a stick of rock. It made him a double Olympic champion and helped secure and deliver the successful London 2012 Games in defiance of the doubters. Now it has made him the most powerful man in athletics.

“I guess in four years’ time what do I want to have achieved? I want to have moved the agenda on. My sport is more than piss and blood,” Lord Coe says towards the end of our interview, his passion momentarily winning out over his tendency to slip into the smooth patter of the sporting politician. “It is also about Jesse Owens and Emil Zatopek. We have reduced the narrative to one of technology and test tubes and we’ve got to fucking move on from that. We’ve got to move on from that. And we will.”

But Coe’s certainty and unshakeable self-belief can also work against him. In his first interview since taking on the huge challenge of reviving track and field as president of its world governing body he is adamant that his role as a global adviser to Nike is non-negotiable.

From the outside, it appears a clear conflict of interest. More than any other sport, modern track and field is in hock to the major sportswear brands that sustain it – some would say to an unhealthy degree.

Coe protests that he has been involved with Nike since 1978. He explains that the role he has held since 2012, that of a global special adviser, is exclusively related to the anti-obesity foundation Time to Move and not to contract negotiations. He points to the fact that London 2012 and the British Olympic Association, which he still chairs, held contracts with Nike’s big rival Adidas. Yet it is hard not to conclude that there is a huge and clanging conflict.

The 58-year-old, who was elected president of the International Association of Athletics Federations ahead of Sergey Bubka after a gruelling 10 months on the campaign trail against a backdrop of snowballing crisis in the sport amid doping and corruption allegations, is unbending. “Look. I’ve been very clear. We will have absolutely pristine corporate governances around everything I’ve done and everything I’ll do,” he says.