IAAF President Lord Coe headed a line-up of top industry leaders at the recent EBU Sports Assembly that also included David Lappartient, UCI President, Amina Lanaya, UCI Director General and Yann Le Moenner, ASO Chief Executive Officer.

They joined EBU Member delegates on the 13 September at EBU HQ in Geneva, for an in depth day of discussion on sport and public service broadcasting, with sessions focussing on athletics and cycling.

Lord Coe gave some of his thoughts to camera on the relationships between athletics and public service media, saying that “Athletics is absolutely inseparable from good public service broadcast, free to air” and that is why “working so closely with the EBU is absolutely vital”.

He also explains why sport is the best reality television there is, pointing out that “there’s no obvious end to the script, sport is unpredictable, it is not a respecter of reputation. It is without boundaries, it is without political bias and that is what makes sport so uniquely important”.

In addition he talked about the recent European Championships, saying that “the aggregation model was terrific and the numbers coming through tell me that it is probably a model that will survive for some time.”