KUALA LUMPUR — Sebastian Coe agrees “in principle” with US President Donald Trump’s stance on excluding transgender athletes from women’s sports but has distanced himself from the broader policies surrounding it.
Speaking to the Piers Morgan Uncensored YouTube channel, the International Olympic Committee presidential candidate said: “I’m not going to get into the local conditions that he is setting about visas and all that, that is very much a US issue.”
Coe, who is also president of World Athletics and four-time Olympic gold medalist, defended efforts to maintain the integrity of women’s sport, stressing that the issue is about “the integrity of competition.”
“I am by nature a social liberal—I really do not choose, nor do I have any predisposition, to tell people how to live their lives—but when it comes to the biology of sport, it is very, very clear-cut. And actually, I am surprised it has been as contentious a discussion as it has become,” he said, The Guardian reported.
Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order aimed at banning transgender athletes from women’s sports, including measures to empower the secretary of state’s office to pressure the IOC on its inclusion policy ahead of the Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028.
The order also calls for a review and adjustment of policies allowing “males seeking to participate in women’s sports” to enter the United States.
World Athletics is set to introduce stricter eligibility rules for female sports, including a cheek swab test to determine if an athlete is biologically female.
Under its new policy, transgender athletes and athletes with differences in sexual development (DSD) will be treated alike, citing research that shows a performance gap between the sexes even before puberty.
“When it comes to the female category in elite sport, it has to be sacrosanct,” said Coe, who is one of seven candidates to be the IOC’s next president.
“The reason I think it is so important is that you cannot have young girls coming into the sport and sensing or feeling that at any stage there is a glass ceiling to their ability to perform at the highest level.
“You simply cannot have this lack of clarity. So at World Athletics, we were very clear, we followed the science, and I think that is critical. I think we have used language that is moderate. We are not rabid here.”
The IOC presidential election will be held in Greece on March 20. One key issue for all candidates is the organisation’s stance on Russia.
The country was barred from competing at last summer’s Olympic Games in Paris following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but individual Russian athletes were allowed to compete as neutrals if they met the eligibility criteria. — February 21, 2025