In the running Coe faces almighty fight to become IOC president - but write him off at your peril

While most Britons were demolishing the last of the Christmas turkey in 1979, Sebastian Coe ran 14.4 miles up the Derwent Valley, defying everything that nature and the elements dared to throw at him.

- Sean Ingle

"It was a hard effort, a 5:30 pace in wet tracksuits and slickers," wrote the Olympic marathoner Kenny Moore, who tried to keep up. "The wind and rain howled out of the Pennines, stopping the men cold in places, blowing white water back up from the spillways into the lakes."

Eventually Moore had enough and went to sit with Coe's father, Peter, who was driving behind them, listening to Schubert in the car. But Coe ploughed on. "I'm harder this year than last," he told his father afterwards. "Clear to see," came the response. A few months later the world realised it, too, as Coe won a brilliantly defiant Olympic 1500m gold in Moscow.

Almost 45 years later, Coe is still running. Only this time he isn't chasing the biggest prize in sport but its most powerful job: the presidency of the International Olympic Committee. Later today the IOC will announce the list of approved candidates to replace Thomas Bach next year. And, barring an unexpected twist, Coe will be the biggest name on the ballot.

But his path to victory is trickier than anything he faced on that wintry run in the Pennines. Not only does Coe have to persuade the majority of the IOC's eclectic membership of 111 voters - which includes royalty, former athletes, sports administrators and politicians he has to do so while Bach does everything in his power to stop him. This is a world of complex geopolitics, backroom deals, and a level of rivalry intrigue at which even a Vatican monsignor would flinch.