Seb Coe

So there are big differences.

But I think this will be an exciting addition to that four-year cycle.

Yeah, look, we agreed this at the recent council meeting at the same time that we had our world championship indoors in Poland.

And we've been trying to deal with a number of issues, which finally I think we've resolved.

One of them is athlete welfare.

The reality of it is that trying to stage a marathon in the middle of a summer and climate change means it doesn't really matter where that is now.

You know,

40 years ago, we were sort of able to say, well, if you had it in Europe during August or September, you'd probably be all right.

There's nowhere in the world where you can guarantee the welfare of the athletes and the management of heat.

And we go to championships wherever we go in our world championships, where, of course, the marathon is.

And we're sort of building a field hospital.

And I think if we are true to our word here, and we really do care about athlete welfare, we had to find a way of taking them out of what is actually often a dangerous environment.

Heat stroke has impact throughout your life if you succumb to it.

Secondly, because of the strength of the international marathon majors, often, you know, Chicago is only a few weeks down the road from our world championships.

New York, again, a few weeks beyond that.

We weren't getting the best fields, if we're being honest about it.

So we decided to move the marathon out of our world championships.

and put it into a time of the year that will serve the athletes more faithfully around the challenges of climate change, will guarantee a stronger field, will be able to showcase our marathon runners

better than we could amongst all the other disciplines.

It also prevents, and it works for an organizing committee at a world championships because you then haven't got the additional challenge of road closures and all the other security issues around it.