Sebastian Coe has told DW that elite women's sport could be "lost" if no action is taken against transgender athletes.

Coe is one of seven candidates vying to replace Thomas Bach as president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most powerful job in world sport.

The issue of transgender athletes has come into sharp focus in recent years, even featuring in US President Donald Trump's pre-inauguration rally earlier this month, with Trump pledging to "keep men out of women's sports."

Asked by DW if transgender athletes were a threat to women's sport, Britain's Coe replied: "At the elite level, yes, they are."

"For me, the element of integrity around elite women's sport is really critical because if you lose that trace, then you lose women's sport. And that's not something I'm prepared to countenance," he said.

In his campaign manifesto, Coe has made clear his desire to "protect and promote" the female category, signaling that inclusion shouldn't be prioritized over fairness. As president of World Athletics, he took the decision to ban transgender athletes who have gone through male puberty from elite women's competition.

However, the 68-year-old stopped short of saying he would issue a blanket ban at the Olympics, if elected as IOC president on March 20.

"That will clearly be a discussion for international [sports] federations," he said. "The way that I've always operated is in collaboration. But while the international federations and national Olympic committees have to maintain primacy over policies, it is very important that the International Olympic Committee shows thought leadership and guidance in that space.

"I think [the rules] have to be clear, and they're not clear. And that has left many international federations in a sort of no man's land."

Should the Olympics reintroduce sex testing?

A gender controversy engulfed the boxing competition at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics after Imane Khelif of Algeria and Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting — both of whom the IOC said were born and raised as female — were said to have failed unspecified gender tests in 2022 and 2023.

Critics of the current policies have called for the reintroduction of mandatory sex testing, a practice that was stopped at the Olympics before the Sydney Games in 2000.

Referencing what happened in Paris, Coe said: "The examples that we've seen in the past are examples that we shouldn't have had to face." But he refused to be drawn on the details of sex testing.

"There has to be assessment and there has to be verification, but of course, that has to be done within global and international agreed medical compliances and methodologies," he added.

Last week, shortly after taking office for his second term, Trump signed an executive order stating that the US government would now only recognize two sexes — male and female — and that these were "not changeable."

In response to that, Coe said it was not for him "to make judgments about the way anybody chooses to live their life.

"If you want to moralize, don't be in politics, go into the church," he said.

"I don't have the philosophical disposition nor the jurisdiction to stop, nor do I want to stop, transgender athletes from competing and enjoying the physicality of sport. But when it comes to elite female competition, that is where we have said no, and it's very clear-cut."

'Confidence' in WADA despite Chinese doping scandal

Coe, a retired track and field athlete and gold medalist in the 1,500 meters at the 1980 and 1984 Games, boasts an impressive CV in sports administration. A former chairman of the British Olympic Association, he ran London's successful 2012 Olympic bid before becoming the head of World Athletics, then known as the IAAF, in 2015.

If he gets the top job at the IOC, he will also have to deal with issues including Russia's participation in international sport amid the ongoing war in Ukraine; simmering tensions between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the US government; and the impact of climate change on the Olympic calendar.

Asked if he could guarantee that there would be no Russian athletes at the 2026 Winter Olympics under his watch if the war continued, Coe replied: "I think that's a settled position."

On the issue of WADA, Coe is more sympathetic, saying he has "confidence" in the embattled organization.

The US government has withheld its funding to WADA amid accusations it had helped to cover up the positive tests of 23 Chinese swimmers before the Tokyo Summer Games in 2021. The allegations emerged last year and sparked a bitter war of words between the United States and the anti-doping watchdog.

"It is important that governments support the ambitions of WADA," Coe said. "It is absolutely critical that the work of WADA is seen in a much broader picture. It's about the integrity of sport. We have confidence in the way that we work with WADA, and I see no reason to doubt that relationship going forward."

Climate change poses challenge to Olympic calendar

Meanwhile, with temperatures rising across the globe, Coe indicated he is open to exploring alternative dates for the Summer Olympics.

"Sport is not hermetically sealed," he said. "My own sport is reliant upon endurance events, and if we're actually true to our word about the welfare of the athletes, we're not going to be able to continue to put them into the summer months. And that's not just about the summer months in the Gulf or Asia or India or South America. It's about the global challenge that we've got."

Edited by: Matt Pearson