Behind closed doors in Switzerland earlier this week, seven candidates for the International Olympic Committee presidency made their pitches as to why they should take on one of the most important roles in world sport.
In front of 100 voters, in a process concealed from public view and masked by a haze of secrecy and tradition, they each took 15 minutes to outline how they will take the Olympics movement forward, in the first contested presidential election since 2013.
Phones are banned. Questions are not permitted. And the candidates will have to wait until March 20 for the poll to get underway, during an event in Greece.
Amongst the speakers there is Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr, the son of the former IOC president who famously announced Sydney as the host city for the 2000 Games.
There is Kirsty Coventry, the Zimbabwean swimmer and most decorated African Olympic athlete in history, with seven medals to her name.
There is royalty in Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan. There is the International Ski Federation president Johan Eliasch, and Union Cycliste Internationale president David Lappartient.
There is the Japanese head of world gymnastics, Morinari Watanabe, who has a bold plan to turn the Olympics into a 24-hour show, with events hosted on each continent throughout future Olympic Games.
And finally there is Sebastian Coe. Arguably the most recognisable name to Australians, and one of the favourites to take over from outgoing president Thomas Bach.
"The bookie's favourites are not always the people that come through," Coe tells legendary broadcaster Bruce McAvaney in an interview for ABC Sport Daily.
"This is a complicated process and it's ultimately for the members to decide and I think they'll make judgements probably right up to the last moment."
After that moment, directly following the March 20 poll, the winner will be announced. A three-month transition period follows, before the official takeover in June.
The winner will be thrown headlong into a stream of difficult discussions and decisions, many of which are significantly more political than they are to do with any kind of physical exertion.
There's the ongoing war in Eastern Europe and what's to be done about Russian athletes. There's the topics of gender in sports, and stadiums in Brisbane, and the ever present dread of climate change and the impact big events like this will have on it.
There's the diplomacy with new US president Donald Trump ahead of the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
And they are all topics Coe talks about with eloquence without ever saying enough that could damage his run at the IOC's big chair.
"I'm not infallible," Coe says.
"I don't have the answers to everything. And that's why I always rely on really qualified HQ teams and a membership that feels engaged and emboldened to tell me when I'm not right.
"And look, I guess that's the athlete in me. Any athlete will tell you and any good coach will tell you that the difference between good and great athletes is a craving of criticism."
The criticism will come. On the topic of gender in sport — one which brings the most heated of arguments on both sides — Coe is possibly most adamant he's been in all the major subjects discussed.
"We follow the science," Coe says when asked by McAvaney whether he would implement the same rules he put in place as head of World Athletics.
"I'm sorry, gender cannot trump biology. I say that because if you do not protect and promote the integrity of women's sports, you simply do not have women's sport.
"Under my watch at World Athletics, I was not going to allow that to happen. And sometimes you have to make tough decisions and those decisions don't always meet with the approval of everybody.
"I'm long enough in the tooth to know that but we made the right decision and we have given a very clear steer.
"And some international federations have chosen to take the same path. And that is a good thing."
On other subjects, Coe toes a delicate line. A line that moves back and forth on the whim of the people in power, and requires a careful but provisioned eye to move when moving is required.
On Russia, he says great strides have been made in cleaning up their doping issues, but that the war in Ukraine is simply one that will be "monitored".
On Trump, he says he is surprised that anyone would think an incoming president would not be anything but accommodating in hosting the biggest sporting show on Earth, despite the challenges of the environmental disaster playing out in Los Angeles.
"I'm very surprised that anybody would have thought that an incoming president for the United States with the next Summer Games in their own backyard would have been anything other than completely supportive," he says.
"Sometimes those conversations [about hosting the Games] are tough conversations. Sometimes they're behind closed doors. Sometimes they will be public. This is a landscape I have lived in for many, many years and I understand.
"As we all know, there've been some terrible, devastating fires in that Los Angeles area, but the venues that will be used in 2028 haven't been damaged.
"I sat through a press conference the other day where the president did actually say that he was a hundred per cent behind the Games, a hundred per cent behind California. And that can only bode well."
Should the incoming IOC president see out their full term, they will oversee Australia's third Olympic Games, via a Brisbane 2032 event that stokes passionate fires of both pride and derision for locals.
Coe, for what's he worth, has a warning for the organisers, while trying to maintain an air of disassociation.
"This is not a criticism of Brisbane," he says when asked about the length of time it is taking to build momentum towards the Games.
"I'm effectively an honorary Australian, but I think we have to be really clear. The world changes every 10 minutes. You and I know that, the world knows that. I think it's possibly not the best way to deliver or to choose a venue 12, 13 years out because you don't know strategically where the world is going to shift.
"You don't know what burgeoning markets are going to be open to you. I think you need a little bit more flexibility in that."
The Olympic stadium, though, continues to cause headaches for stakeholders in Queensland, and is one decision that needs to made well in advance of the eventual event.
"I'm far too long in the tooth to get involved in the local complexities," Coe says.
"It is for local communities, it's for organising committees, for the International Olympic Committee to decide what works best and what is going to leave the best possible legacy, because legacy is important here.
"You don't want a games just to be three weeks of outstanding sport and then a couple of years time people forgetting the impact or not being able to observe the impact that that has had."
From Los Angeles to Brisbane and beyond, the next IOC president will have the weight of the sporting world on their shoulders.
And it is a legacy that will live with them long after they have vacated their throne.
"You stand by what you believe, you stand by what you say, and then you go out and implement it," Coe says.
"And you should be judged on that."
- Listen to the full interview between Bruce McAvaney and Sebsatian Coe at ABC Sport Daily.
