Latest news with #LordCoe
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
All hype, little substance: Cadillac unveils new F1 team amid huge US expectations
The sight of Lord Coe bopping along to Janelle Monáe – a Grammy award-nominated singer/rapper/actor who identifies as non-binary – at a red-carpet event hosted by Cadillac at Queen Miami Beach on Saturday evening, was as incongruous as it sounds. But the American car maker, famous for its distinctive tail fins, will be hoping it fits right in when it enters Formula One as the 11th team on the grid next season. It will be no easy task. Entering F1 at the beginning of one of the biggest regulation changes in the sport's history, with brand-new chassis and power units, will be hard enough. Doing it with a new team, which Cadillac are building from scratch – as opposed to buying an existing one off the shelf – makes it exponentially harder. 'We are literally in a race against time,' admitted Graeme Lowdon, Cadillac's British team principal, speaking to Telegraph Sport in the Miami paddock on Sunday. 'We've got clocks on all our walls at the factory at Silverstone counting down to FP1 in Australia in 2026 – and that date is not going to change. 'So we've got to build these cars. And before we build them we've got to manufacture parts. And before we manufacture parts we have to design the parts. And before that we've got to hire the people to design the parts. And before that we have to put the assets and infrastructure in place to hire the people to build them… 'Trying to balance all that last year when we had no certainty of entry was the trickiest time. Now we have certainty of entry, but we have a very small window in which to get it done.' Lowdon's previous experience of running Formula One teams was, it is fair to say, rather different. The 60-year-old, who hails from Corbridge in Northumberland, was chief executive officer of the Virgin and Marussia Formula One outfits back in the 2010s. The expectations at Cadillac are on another level. They are not planning to be also-rans. The team are backed by TWG Motorsports, the umbrella group which owns Andretti Motorsport, and by American car behemoth General Motors, whose commitment to building the team's own power units from 2029 was crucial in gaining entry. Their head honchos, General Motors president Mark Reuss and TWG chief executive Dan Towriss, were also at Queen Miami Beach on Saturday night, along with FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, a big supporter of the project. So too was Mario Andretti, the 1978 world champion who remains the last American driver to win the F1 title. Cadillac's backers look at Formula One, at the increasing Americanisation of the sport – the three races already in the States, the Hollywood movie about to come out, the Netflix boom – and they see opportunity. The team's head count is up to 350 already and they are recruiting, on average, one more person every day. 🚨Mick Schumacher and his manager were at the Cadillac event last night!📸 (@xosean)#CadillacF1 #MiamiGP — Cadillac F1 Team News (@CadillacF1_) May 4, 2025 As well as the factory at Silverstone, which will be the 'European hub', Cadillac are in the process of completing a new headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis, while they also have the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building a facility to manufacture the new engine. Until then Cadillac will be a customer team of Ferrari. 'It is a huge, huge project,' Lowdon says. 'And one of the biggest challenges we have is there are all these parameters which restrict how quickly we can grow. Under Formula One's cost cap, teams are limited on what they can spend each year on capital equipment. But for the other 10 teams that's what they can spend to add to the few hundred million of capital equipment that they already have. Whereas we can only spend what they can spend this year, and we're starting from a blank sheet of paper.' Given the scale of the challenge, it is no surprise to hear Lowdon say the team are still 'a little way off' naming their drivers. There had been rumours Sergio Pérez might be unveiled on Saturday night. A handful of Pérez fans stood outside the club chanting his name. But the Mexican was nowhere to be seen. In fact, Saturday's 'brand reveal' in Miami turned out to be more hype than substance, with a vague promotional video which unveiled a team logo that unsurprisingly incorporates Cadillac's established branding. But Lowdon says 'all the names you'd expect' are in the mix: Pérez, Valtteri Bottas, Colton Herta, Zhou Guanyu, Pato O'Ward, Mick Schumacher, who was in attendance on Saturday. Lowdon is sure about one thing, though. Rumours Cadillac might have trouble getting two cars out in Melbourne are wide of the mark. 'Oh, we'll be there,' he says. 'We have to be. We already have our first 2026 chassis in-house and we're testing it. But there's no letting up. It's full on.' America expects.
Telegraph
05-05-2025
- Automotive
- Telegraph
All hype, little substance: Cadillac unveils new F1 team amid huge US expectations
The sight of Lord Coe bopping along to Janelle Monáe – a Grammy award-nominated singer/rapper/actor who identifies as non-binary – at a red-carpet event hosted by Cadillac at Queen Miami Beach on Saturday evening, was as incongruous as it sounds. But the American car maker, famous for its distinctive tail fins, will be hoping it fits right in when it enters Formula One as the 11th team on the grid next season. It will be no easy task. Entering F1 at the beginning of one of the biggest regulation changes in the sport's history, with brand-new chassis and power units, will be hard enough. Doing it with a new team, which Cadillac are building from scratch – as opposed to buying an existing one off the shelf – makes it exponentially harder. 'We are literally in a race against time,' admitted Graeme Lowdon, Cadillac's British team principal, speaking to Telegraph Sport in the Miami paddock on Sunday. 'We've got clocks on all our walls at the factory at Silverstone counting down to FP1 in Australia in 2026 – and that date is not going to change. 'So we've got to build these cars. And before we build them we've got to manufacture parts. And before we manufacture parts we have to design the parts. And before that we've got to hire the people to design the parts. And before that we have to put the assets and infrastructure in place to hire the people to build them… 'Trying to balance all that last year when we had no certainty of entry was the trickiest time. Now we have certainty of entry, but we have a very small window in which to get it done.' Lowdon's previous experience of running Formula One teams was, it is fair to say, rather different. The 60-year-old, who hails from Corbridge in Northumberland, was chief executive officer of the Virgin and Marussia Formula One outfits back in the 2010s. The expectations at Cadillac are on another level. They are not planning to be also-rans. The team are backed by TWG Motorsports, the umbrella group which owns Andretti Motorsport, and by American car behemoth General Motors, whose commitment to building the team's own power units from 2029 was crucial in gaining entry. Their head honchos, General Motors president Mark Reuss and TWG chief executive Dan Towriss, were also at Queen Miami Beach on Saturday night, along with FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, a big supporter of the project. So too was Mario Andretti, the 1978 world champion who remains the last American driver to win the F1 title. Cadillac's backers look at Formula One, at the increasing Americanisation of the sport – the three races already in the States, the Hollywood movie about to come out, the Netflix boom – and they see opportunity. The team's head count is up to 350 already and they are recruiting, on average, one more person every day. 🚨 Mick Schumacher and his manager were at the Cadillac event last night! 📸 (@xosean) #CadillacF1 #MiamiGP — Cadillac F1 Team News (@CadillacF1_) May 4, 2025 As well as the factory at Silverstone, which will be the 'European hub', Cadillac are in the process of completing a new headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis, while they also have the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building a facility to manufacture the new engine. Until then Cadillac will be a customer team of Ferrari. 'It is a huge, huge project,' Lowdon says. 'And one of the biggest challenges we have is there are all these parameters which restrict how quickly we can grow. Under Formula One's cost cap, teams are limited on what they can spend each year on capital equipment. But for the other 10 teams that's what they can spend to add to the few hundred million of capital equipment that they already have. Whereas we can only spend what they can spend this year, and we're starting from a blank sheet of paper.' Given the scale of the challenge, it is no surprise to hear Lowdon say the team are still 'a little way off' naming their drivers. There had been rumours Sergio Pérez might be unveiled on Saturday night. A handful of Pérez fans stood outside the club chanting his name. But the Mexican was nowhere to be seen. In fact, Saturday's 'brand reveal' in Miami turned out to be more hype than substance, with a vague promotional video which unveiled a team logo that unsurprisingly incorporates Cadillac's established branding. But Lowdon says 'all the names you'd expect' are in the mix: Pérez, Valtteri Bottas, Colton Herta, Zhou Guanyu, Pato O'Ward, Mick Schumacher, who was in attendance on Saturday. Lowdon is sure about one thing, though. Rumours Cadillac might have trouble getting two cars out in Melbourne are wide of the mark. 'Oh, we'll be there,' he says. 'We have to be. We already have our first 2026 chassis in-house and we're testing it. But there's no letting up. It's full on.' America expects.
BBC News
23-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
London Marathon waits on report before transgender decision
London Marathon organisers will wait for reports from the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Sport England before taking any future decisions on the categorisation of transgender UK Supreme Court ruled last week the legal definition of a woman is based on biological ruling does not lead to any immediate change regarding eligibility in elite sport. Governing bodies are not now compelled to amend or reconsider their rules. But the weight of the ruling is likely to influence policy-making over time, and may lead to more sports banning transgender women from competing in women's London Marathon does not allow transgender women to compete in elite, championship and 'good for age' female races, in accordance with World Athletics guidelines introduced in athletes are able to compete in the mass participation event and can self-select their gender on the ballot. "The London Marathon has been very clear about protecting women's rights, that's women from birth, women as defined by the court, in terms of competition, good for age, championship, elite athletes," said event director Hugh Brasher."We have to wait, as does everybody, for the detailed report to come out from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It is said to be coming out in the summer and we will also wait for the report from Sport England as well."We don't know what detail is going to come out [in the reports]. We obviously will meet what the law says - but there has to be that detail coming out of that Commission and out of Sport England."We are clear about what we have done and we are really clear about the competition element - anywhere where there is competition, and that includes good for age, has to be your biological birth sex."World Athletics president Lord Coe announced in March 2023 that transgender women would be banned from competing in the female category at international the governing body's previous rules, transgender athletes could compete in women's events provided their testosterone levels remained below a certain level for a period of 12 months before competing."We delight in being both inclusive, but also protecting in competition the rights of women, which is incredibly important," said Brasher. "Lord Coe and World Athletics have always led on that and we absolutely look to continue doing that."More than 56,000 people are expected to take part in the 2025 London Marathon through the streets of the capital on Sunday.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
World Athletics to introduce mandatory sex testing for female competitions
World Athletics will introduce mandatory testing for anyone entering female competitions to verify their biological sex, insisting they are necessary to protect women's sport. It is the latest move overseen by Sebastian Coe - as president of the governing body - to address the gender eligibility issue, two years after banning anyone assigned male at birth from female events. Lord Coe said after a World Athletics Council meeting today that they could adopt non-invasive cheek swab tests or dry blood tests that only have to be carried out once on an athlete. "This we feel is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition," he said. The tests would seek to verify if someone has transitioned to a female after going through male puberty or if they had differences of sex development that provided testosterone advantages. The tests would seek to verify if someone has transitioned to a female after going through male puberty or if they had differences of sex development that provided testosterone advantages. Testing providers are now being sought. Lord Coe said: "The pre-clearance testing will be for athletes to be able to compete in the female category. "The process is very straightforward frankly, very clear and it's an important one and we will work on the timelines. "Neither of these are invasive. They are necessary and they will be done to absolute medical standards." It follows US President Donald Trump ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics saying there are only two sexes - male and female - while calling on sports to ban transgender women from women's events. The International Olympic Committee has previously called a return to sex testing a "bad idea", but incoming IOC President Kirsty Coventry is not ruling it out, having also talked about protecting the female category. "This is a conversation that's happened and the international federations have taken a far greater lead in this conversation," she told Sky News after her election last week. "What I was proposing is to bring a group together with the international federations and really understand each sport is slightly different. "We know in equestrian, sex is really not an issue, but in other sports it is. "So what I'd like to do again is bring the international federations together and sit down and try and come up with a collective way forward for all of us to move." Reem Alsalem, the UN's special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, last year called on the IOC to reintroduce sex testing or female athletes to protect them from injuries amid concerns about eligibility. The IOC introduced "certificates of femininity" at the 1968 Mexico Games. But those chromosome-based tests were deemed unscientific and unethical and dropped ahead of Sydney 2000. This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version. You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.
BBC News
19-03-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
IOC presidential race reaches finish line
The race to become world sport's most powerful figure has entered the finishing straight with International Olympic Committee (IOC) members in Greece to elect a new president for the first time since 2013. The winner will replace Thomas Bach and become just the 10th person to hold the highest office in sport - taking the role for at least the next eight years. BBC Sport looks at the key questions before Thursday's vote. Where is the vote taking place? The IOC has chosen for its 144th Session a luxury hotel in the plush seaside resort of Costa Navarino, about 60 miles south of Olympia, birthplace of the ancient Games, where an opening ceremony for the gathering took place earlier this week. How will the vote be decided? The IOC - a mix of royalty, former athletes and leading figures from the worlds of law, politics and business - will conduct an electronic secret ballot at around 14:00 GMT, with each member casting one vote per round. In an intriguing process that has drawn comparisons with the way cardinals choose a new pope, IOC members must hand in their phones before entering the auditorium, and compatriots of a candidate cannot vote until that individual is eliminated from the process. In total, 106 of the 109 members are present, and an absolute majority (50% of the votes) is needed for a candidate to win. If none achieve that in the first round, the candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated, and additional rounds will then be conducted until someone has an absolute majority. In what is thought to be one of the closest races in the IOC's 131 year history, most insiders are predicting several rounds of all follows an opaque campaign process which restricted candidates to 15-minute presentations at a private event in January, with media barred and no scope for questions from members afterwards. With no endorsements by members, nor any criticism of rival candidates allowed, much will depend on behind-the-scenes lobbying, and an unpredictable result cannot be ruled out. Who are the seven candidates? Lord Coe is the highest-profile contender. A two-time Olympic 1500m champion, the 68-year-old oversaw the London 2012 Games before taking charge of World Athletics, and is bidding to become the first British IOC president. Coe told BBC Sport that he was "in good shape" on Wednesday, later insisting that "there is momentum"."I have enjoyed the campaign and the discussions that I have had," he added. "I have listened a lot and I've heard about what members are concerned about and what they would like to change."And I believe my manifesto strikes the right balance between building on the last 12 years and change with purpose and care. It's an election and I'm enjoying the energy."The only other former Olympian among the candidates is another double gold medallist, former swimmer Kirsty Coventry. If successful, Zimbabwe's 41-year-old sports minister would make history by becoming the first woman, the first African and the youngest person to hold the third of three front-runners is 65-year-old Spanish businessman Juan Antonio Samaranch. the IOC's vice-president. He is a member of the IOC's executive board, like Coventry, and is trying to follow in the footsteps of his father, who served as president from 1980 to businessman and ski federation president Johan Eliasch, Japan's Morinari Watanabe - head of the international gymnastics federation, French cycling chief David Lappartient and Jordanian Prince Feisal al-Hussein are the other contenders. What are the candidates pitching to do? Most of the candidates have campaigned on similar themes, pledging to modernise, promote sustainability, embrace technology and empower has put much emphasis on protecting female sport. He has suggested he would consider introducing a blanket ban on transgender women competing in the female category if elected. The IOC and IPC both currently allow individual sports to set their own rules regarding transgender athletes. Under Coe's presidency, World Athletics has banned transgender women from competing in the female category at international events and toughened the rules over the participation of athletes with differences in sex development (DSD). Coe has also said he will seek talks with social media companies to try to tackle abuse of female and Samaranch are seen as continuity candidates. Among the outsiders, Eliasch has proposed rotating the Winter Games among a group of permanent hosts while Watanabe wants to stage the Olympics across five cities from five continents at the same time. Will there be controversy? Whoever wins, there has already been scrutiny of a process lacking transparency, but this will only intensify if Coventry is successful because she is widely seen as Bach's preferred candidate. The sole female candidate has played down suggestions that the outgoing president has been rallying support for her, but this could be an intriguing final test of Bach's influence. Coventry has also had to defend her association with the government of controversial President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has faced allegations of corruption and human rights Jnr is seen by many as the favourite, but has faced questions over the fact that two Chinese IOC members who sit on the board of his family foundation - which is based in China - are permitted to vote. When asked by BBC Sport whether that hands him an unfair advantage, he defended the rules. If he emulates his father - who raised the profile of the Olympic movement but was also president at the time of the damaging 1999 Salt Lake City corruption scandal - it may not be the best look for the governing body at a time when it is trying to has received the support of athletes such as Usain Bolt and Mo Farah, but is seen as something of a disruptor by many within the Olympic movement. As head of World Athletics, he has taken a tougher stance than the IOC with Russia over both doping and the invasion of Ukraine. He has also called for better IOC leadership over gender policies after an eligibility controversy overshadowed the women's boxing competition at the Paris 2024 surprise move to award cash for gold medals at last year's Paris Olympics also antagonised the IOC. He has also said that too much power has been concentrated at the top of the IOC and not enough has been made of the members' talents. What will be in the inbox of the new president? Whoever is chosen will need to be an astute diplomat, assuming power at a pivotal time for the Olympic movement, and amid a complicated and tense geopolitical new president - who will formally take office in June - may have to deal with the potential reintegration of Russia, which was banned after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and with US President Donald Trump in the build up to LA 2028. He has already threatened to deny visas for transgender women athletes trying to visit the US to compete in the female category at the LA is also a winter Olympics in northern Italy to prepare for next year, and a decision looming on where the 2036 summer Games should be staged, with bids expected from India, South Africa and the Middle tasks range from contending with gender eligibility, human rights, climate change and AI, to ensuring the Games remain relevant and attracts new audiences and sponsors in a fragmented and rapidly-changing media and entertainment landscape.
