Paris — If Sebastian Coe thinks beating Steve Ovett to the finish line or running a successful London Olympics was tough, he is now about to embark on something that looks a great deal more daunting.
Saving track and field — from itself and from eroding global relevance — is the kind of challenge that only a supremely confident, thoroughly committed or genuinely deluded individual would embrace.
But Coe, long considered the golden boy of British sport, is front-and-center now after being elected president of the I.A.A.F., track and field’s world governing body, on Wednesday in Beijing.