Lord Coe praise for Mo Farah
Lord Coe admitted he felt for Mo Farah that his "spectacular" achievement in becoming the first man in history to complete the long-distance 'triple double' would be greeted by some with scepticism.
The 32-year-old racked up his seventh straight global title when he added the 5,000 metres crown to his 10,000m triumph at the World Championships in Beijing.
The Briton had already won over both distances at the London Olympics in 2012 and the World Championships in Moscow the following year.
His latest successes at the Bird's Nest stadium, though, came at the end of a tumultuous year in which he was caught up in the doping allegations surrounding his coach Alberto Salazar.
Salazar has denied all the claims against him, while Farah was accused of no wrongdoing, but Coe accepted it was sadly predictable that his achievements would raise eyebrows, especially given the state of the sport at the moment. The build-up to the championships was dominated by allegations of widespread doping.
"Mo is a wonderful athlete," said the incoming president of the International Association of Athletics Federations.
"I have watched his progress from the junior ranks, I've stood at the side of tracks when he's been competing and I've awarded him medals when he was a junior athlete.
"This is part of the challenge we have. I remember breaking the world mile record in 1981 and I was dubbed by most people an overnight sensation.
"I had to remind them it had taken me 10 years to get to that position since joining my first athletics club.
"We have to be careful here when we start making assumptions about quality and unpredictable performances.
"Often in the largest part it is down to innate ability, hard work, focus and probably somewhere in the locker about 10 years of road mileage and thousands of tons of steel in the gym and people who have given up a large part of their lives to help you.
"It is sadly slightly the territory we have inherited. I think one of my responsibilities is to move the sport off that territory. We are more than a discussion about test tubes, blood and urine."
Farah's unprecedented spell of global domination - he has not lost a major outdoor final since 2011 - has reopened the debate about where he stands in the pantheon of all-time greats of the sport.
Former Olympic medallist Brendan Foster described him as Britain's "greatest sportsman".
Coe said: "His progress through the ranks has been spectacular and that's a good thing.
"If you look at the medals he has won in major championships and the fact this is now the second time (at a World Championships) that he has successfully doubled up at 5,000m and 10,000m, two particularly arduous events, you would be hard pressed to say that he wasn't the most successful distance runner in terms of medals.
"But there are other things that you need to throw into the balance - world records, times, speeds, all those sorts of things.
"He is a wonderful athlete, I'll leave the greatest-ever tag to others. If I conceded that I would lose a lifelong friendship with Daley Thompson."
Coe succeeds Lamine Diack as IAAF president following the championships in Beijing, which finish on Sunday.
And he again stressed that his role as a global advisor to Nike did not represent a conflict of interest with his position at the IAAF.
"I think there are three things to always bear in mind here," he said.
"A conflict is only a conflict if it is not a registered responsibility.
"I think I am probably the most transparent and open person that has actually ever sought office. Everything I do is in the public domain, there's no secret about that.
"Secondly it is only a conflict if you cannot stand behind procedures and processes and thirdly it's if you behave badly and I don't intend to do any one of those three."