The golden ticket: Inside the race for the biggest job in world sport

Britain's Sebastian Coe is among the front-runners, but faces stiff competition from all sides in the politically charged contest to become the next IOC president

- Sean Ingle

More than 40 years after | doing conditioning work or lifting Sebastian Coe powered to his second Olympic 1500m title, he is still running hungry. He's in the gym most mornings at 6am, cranking out 40-50km a week on the treadmill, weights, before meticulously recording his workouts in training diaries just as he did during his golden heyday.

Even at 68, he is still chasing a fresh ambition: securing the most powerful job in global sport.

"I will work harder for this than I'll probably ever work for anything," Coe insisted in December when he launched his manifesto to be the next president of the International Olympic Committee. "It's the dance that I just couldn't sit out." That dance, however, is about to get a lot more frenetic.

Last week at the Château de Vidy in Lausanne, Coe had his one chance to address and impress the 108-member IOC electorate directly. The stakes are were nerve-flutteringly high.

Especially as Coe and the other six candidates only got 15 minutes to give their presentations. But Coe has form for delivering under acute pressure, both on the track for Great Britain and having led London's successful bid for the 2012 Games, even though Paris and Madrid were initially seen as favourites.

In the corridors and shadows of the 18th-century castle last week, a game within the game was also being played. Palms were pressed, small talk made, confidences gained. Coe is especially good at this. But so is chief rival, the 65-year-old Spaniard Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr, the IOC's current vice-president.

Many eyes were also on the final member of the "big three" - the Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry, who won seven Olympic medals and would be the first woman and the first African to get the job. The 41-yearold also has the advantage of being the preferred candidate of the current IOC president, Thomas Bach.