Indian Athletes Should be Ambitious to Achieve Success at the World Stage: Sebastian Coe

In his first official visit to a member country after assuming office in August, earlier this year, world athletics body IAAF chief Sebastian Coe urged the Indian athletes to learn from countries like Jamaica and Kenya, who have excelled at world stage.

"One of the most important ingredients is strong presence and quality of track and field in schools.

"In Jamaica and Kenya, there is a vibrant presence of track and field in schools. India can do the same," Coe said at the press conference after addressing the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) officials in New Delhi.

"I have visited Jamaica many times and 50,000 people would watch school and college level championships there. One of the things I want to do as IAAF president is to sign MoUs with education ministers of countries to include track and field programmes in schools," said the Briton.

Coe, who is on a two-day visit to India, attended the executive committee meeting of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), said India should have "ambitions" to achieve success despite not being able to win a medal at the Olympics.

When quizzed about the fact why India has not won a medal in the Olympics, he felt that India are not far away from winning one.

"It's very tough to win a medal in a World Championships or the Olympics. India has a huge potential and Indian athletes should be ambitious to achieve success at the world stage and I don't see why they cannot do it. They are not far from doing that."

Flanked by AFI president Adille Sumariwalla, who became a member of the IAAF Council recently, Coe said that India will have to work to attract corporate sponsorships to raise the profile of the sport in the country.

"The (proposed) Indian Athletics League seems interesting if you have to sponsors coming. Some of the world's biggest MNCs are in India and you need to engage with them. You have to have sponsorships, have regional championships and work to bring big events. You need to strengthen the competition structure," he said.

"In the last 20 years, in every Championships there have been photo finishes in many events to win medals. India have been doing well be it in junior events, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games.

"The 2010 Commonwealth Games were a big success, especially in track and field events. I feel that the 2010 CWG made a big impact in Indian athletics with youngsters

taking up athletics," Coe added, who is also expected to have detailed discussions with the AFI top brass.

Athletics, which was hit hard by allegations of widespread doping in recent reports by Sunday Times in London and German broadcaster ARD, but Coe defended his sport, saying that "he would have the embarrassment of testing positive than not testing".

"I am not in a position to respond to these external reports. It's a technical and complicated area and WADA is looking into the issue. But every sport has issues. Our sport tested samples more than any other sport in the world. Usain Bolt is the most tested athlete in world and he is clean.

"But athletics is not just about dope testing. There are challenges and we can improved upon them. Our aim is to protect clean athletes.

"Athletics has been in the vanguard of creation of the WADA and Court of Arbitration for Sport. Many international federations looked up to us as an example," the 59-year-old said.