IAAF General Secretary on Centenary Celebrations, Olympic Preparations

(ATR) Essar Gabriel tells Around the Rings the IAAF will not rest on its laurels as athletics enters its second century as the number one Olympic sport.

Gabriel, the former director general of the Paris 2003 World Athletics Championships and chief operating officer for the French capital's failed 2012 Olympic bid, was instrumental in organizing Singapore 2010 as Youth Olympic Games head for the IOC.

In this wide-ranging interview conducted last week, the new IAAF general secretary also hits upon preparations for London 2012, the success of the Athletics' World Plan and how the IAAF must change heading into its next 100 years.

Around the Rings: With 100 days to go until the IAAF centenary, how are celebrations going so far, and what do you hope to accomplish with this year of commemoration?

Essar Gabriel: The centenary is already in fact in full swing. We kicked off with a dinner that was hosted in Istanbul prior to the World Indoor Championships, and this will continue to unfold itself throughout the year.

July 17 is indeed the anniversary date, and we will be having a celebration here in Monaco together with the Principality.

The climax of our celebrations will come November 25 with the Centenary Gala in Barcelona.

Between July 17 and November 25, we will also be having an IAAF Dinner, which will be to celebrate the centenary as part of the Olympic Games on August 2 in London.

What we are expecting is all along to remind ourselves what has been the last century of athletics since 1912 and since the creation of the IAAF on that same date just after the hosting of the Olympic Games in Stockholm. It’s something we can be proud of, not only at the level of the international federation as it went through the century but also the glorious past achievements that have been those on the track and beyond.

Also, at the same time, we look to launch ourselves in the best manner into our second century under the leadership of president Lamine Diack, who is setting the pace.

ATR: The centenary is a celebration of the past 100 years, but how do you anticipate athletics will change in the next 100 years, and what must the IAAF do to keep athletics the number one Olympic sport?

EG: It always starts with a vision. In the case of the IAAF today, the vision is indeed to be and to remain the number one Olympic sport.

When you talk about athletics today, you can talk of obviously the elite events and the elite athletes – that’s the World Athletics Series of the IAAF, the Olympic Games, the Youth Olympic Games and also the Samsung Diamond League, the World Challenge and all the other one-day events – but athletics is also about what is happening on the street, where there is a phenomenon of running – athletes who run for reasons which have to do with social inclusion, health and engaging in physical activity.

Worldwide running is booming and is a phenomenon that is now well-structured at the top with marathons and competitions in road running getting IAAF recognition through the gold, silver and bronze labels. So at the same time that you have the World Athletics Series and other elite events which make our sport fantastic, you do have also a part of athletics which is Sport of All, of athletics mainly through running.

And then another part of what athletics is about is the theme of grassroots, and in our case with an objective which has been that of the president and the Athletics' World Plan which was that of becoming the number one sport at schools worldwide. Between Sport for All and grassroots aspects and reaching out at the top level to being a fantastic sport to watch at the elite level, this would be what we are about today and how we are engaging into the second century.

To continue to be at the top, we have to continue to look and engage with regards to what the world is about today. We just spoke about a number of items, and they range from social responsibility to elite competition to grassroots and to education. When we look at the world of tomorrow, we’re talking of the youth of today and the way they represent themselves. In terms of communication, the obvious one is that of social media and all the phenomenon of Web 2.0 and how we can ensure that we communicate our best through such media. For sure, athletics, which is a sport that can be practiced on your own, together with others, anywhere throughout the world whether you’re old or young, man or woman, for sure, I think we are keen to be able to present that to the communities out there and to put forward and promote this beautiful sport of athletics.

ATR: You mentioned the Athletics' World Plan coming to a close this year. Is it "mission accomplished," so to speak, or will the IAAF be formulating a new plan going forward?

EG: Well, we are always looking to revisit at the strategic level what we are about. Any international federation should be constantly doing that, and in the case of the Athletics' World Plan which began in 2003 and which was a 10-year plan, we are indeed reaching the conclusion of that, but that does not mean that we will rest on our laurels.

The Athletics' World Plan has indeed delivered well on how we wanted to take the sport into the 21st century. With the notion of expanding into new markets, which is a reality for us today, looking at bettering our competition program with regards to our premium events and ensuring that there is always the advent of new talent in our sport, I guess we are well on track with regards to that today.

One point I would single out is the targeting of the younger generations that we were just talking about with the creation of a whole stream of activities around schools and youth. With the advent and the launch of a very successful program Kids’ Athletics, which is in effect a grassroots program for kids to go to schools which can easily bring into the schoolyard games which are an initiation to athletics because we are the mother of all sports between running, jumping and throwing.

With regards to the future, one of the outcomes and the deliverables of the Athletics' World Plan is indeed in this last year to look at what next. In this case, this is already in motion with a strategic review that is being launched as we speak and which will allow us to look at updating and consolidating the vision and the long-term objectives of our federation and, by the same token, look at how best to serve such long-term objectives and visions that will be approved and are the prerogative of the Council chaired by our president.

ATR: There’s not many more than 100 days to go until the start of athletics competition at London 2012? How are preparations coming?

EG: There’s a lot of excitement with the Olympics, and what more to say than athletics is the major sport of the Olympic Games. We’ve got a newly built 80,000-seat stadium, which will be a fantastic legacy and will lead us out to a regathering in 2017 just like we’re going to do for Beijing in 2015 with the World Athletics Championships happening there after the inauguration of the Bird’s Nest for the 2008 Olympics.

Preparations are, as you know, the responsibility of the local organizing committee LOCOG led by one of our vice presidents Sebastian Coe. Needless to say, in this case, it is in good hands as far as ensuring that athletics is well-planned, but it’s also the responsibility of the IOC.

What we can say from our side as an international federation is that we are very happy with the preparations, and we’re very thankful to the London organizers and that all of the IAAF family is really looking forward to being in London and celebrating what the Games are all about.

ATR: What do you hope to get out of next month’s Olympic Stadium test event?

EG: What we are looking to have as an outcome is to better refine the operations around the competition itself. That starts with ensuring that all those who will be a part of making this event a reality at the level of the organizing committee from the local staff to the volunteers who will be joining to make this reality are in good coordination with our technical delegates and our team and work together with a good grasp of how the stadium operates.

Coming with this is the technological aspect of serving the competition. We’re looking to test the production of On Venue Results (OVR) and how that is produced, how it is fed to the spectators at the stadium but then also how does it feed itself to the different mediums out there, including the TV networks who will be beaming the events worldwide.

ATR: What, if any, input has the IAAF had in plans for a possible European Games, and what are your own thoughts on the proposal?

EG: The European Games is an idea put up by the European Olympic Committees. It is currently under study, and we understand a feasibility study is being taken forward by the EOC. We are very cautious about such a project, and the European Athletics Association is in fact today basically unhappy about the plan as it has been presented to them because the athletics calendar is already very crowded, and in the cradle of athletics events which is Europe, it is of concern to have the addition of such an event to such a calendar.

I would say at this stage, having said all that, there is a need for a further and deeper reflection, and we’ll be attentive to what is going to unfold as the next steps for such a project.

ATR: From a development standpoint, what parts of the world would you like to see new athletics talent coming from?

EG: Today we are, as you know, the most universal sport when it comes to the number of countries winning medals at our world championships and also at the Olympics.

Having said that, where the development can take us further in our universality are in the two continents of Asia and South America.

ATR: How did Istanbul 2012 go, and what if anything can the outdoor world championships learn from the much more compressed three-day indoor championships?

EG: It was a remarkable success. We had a record 172 participating countries. We had full houses for the evening sessions, and the morning sessions were also well crowded.

The lesson to learn is with the work that has been accomplished by our technical delegates and the IAAF working with our broadcast partners on the competitions and the timetable itself to ensure the highest density of excitement and drama unfolding in the arena, I guess the takeaway is that there is always room to better the competition timetable.

That is an effort which has also been done for the last edition of the World Athletics Championships in Daegu with the same effect. We had evening sessions, which we didn’t want to go beyond three hours, we looked to balance the number of finals across all days and we had qualification rounds only in the morning. This is a testimony to the attractiveness of athletics and the World Athletics Series in general, and it bodes well for the next editions which will be in Moscow next year for the outdoor championships and in Sopot, Poland in 2014 for the indoors.

ATR: Did you ever figure out what exactly caused the electronic voting system failure at the IAAF Congress in Daegu?

EG: I don’t know if you have the press release that came out during our last Council meeting. Lauri Tarasti from Finland, who is the former chair of our juridical commission and somebody well respected, had been commissioned to conduct an independent investigation and submit a report. This report was put forward to our Council, and it included the calling of an independent technical expert to assess the system and get the explanations from the company who produced the voting system, and I think it’s worth putting forward that the faults in the electronic voting system have been clearly established with regard to what happened there.

The system was registering too many votes. We don’t need to get into the technical details, but it is very clear in the report. Also, the votes went partially to the wrong candidate and that was observed. We’ve got the technical explanations, and also explanations in terms of process which were put forward.

I think that looking ahead the IAAF can look forward to indeed ensuring that this doesn’t happen anymore. With the recommendations that were put forward both in terms of the process and bringing on board a company and developing a system and making it accountable and also the nomination of an independent expert by the IAAF who is there to cooperate during the Congress with the scrutineers that are appointed as per our constitution and to help them and the system with regards to the voting system, which needs some technical expertise.

So I think all that is very positive and puts forward the will of the president and the Council after the failure of the voting system to ensure that this was thoroughly investigated, that the explanations were put on the table and dealt with with the proper set of recommendations that were unanimously approved by our Council, and I think that this is something worth mentioning.

I think it’s something to be commended because I think there was a lot of coverage and questions and interrogations, and I think this is now behind us.

ATR: Is there anything else I’m forgetting to ask or anything else you wanted to share with me?

EG: I’ve been on board now since the month of November, just now four months, and I’m really looking forward to serving the IAAF and beyond it the sport of athletics, and it’s a pleasure to be here in Monaco and I’m looking forward to the second century of our international federation.

Interview conducted by Matthew Grayson.

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