Seb Coe: I cannot guarantee a drug-free World Championships

Lord Coe was speaking on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show.

Next month's World Athletics Championships will be held in London, and the Russian Athletics Federation is banned from the event, following allegations of doping organised by the Russian state.

Russia is barred from international athletics after 2016's McLaren report, which alleged that more than a thousand athletes were involved in doping in Russia between 2011 and 2015.

Coe said, "It's a very utopian view, people will always seek to cheat."

Despite this, Coe was confident that the set-up to catch doping, "is a lot safer.

"We have the technology that allows us to be very much more specific about what we are looking for.

"I would love to tell you that we will have a drug-free sport in future. Everything we are doing is engaged in trying to achieve that but we know a few people will cheat.

"What we do have in place now is an independent athlete integrity unit, we have independent sanctioning and discipline and we will be able to be a lot tougher and speed up the process."

Coe also spoke about the 2021 World Athletics Championships, and the process that saw it awarded to Eugene, Oregon. This is being investigated by the FBI and the Criminal Division of America's Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The decision attracted attention because the usual bidding process did not take place.

"First of all, 23 people voted for Eugene, Oregon," said Coe.

"Every sport wants to get into the United States. It has been a very clear intent from the IAAF to have a World Championships in the United States.

"I would have loved other cities in the United States to have bid for it. Eugene wasn't our choice, it was the choice of United States Track and Field Association.

"Eugene and Qatar came within three votes of each other and the council made a judgment that we needed to have a presence in the United States.

"If anything subsequently comes out of that that gives us any reason for concern we will look at that."