Swedish Athletics Association President Björn Eriksson revealed he would recommend they back Britain's double Olympic 1500 metres champion at the IAAF Congress in Beijing on August 19 at a Board meeting.

Coe now has the public backing of 21 countries, while none have so far come out in support of his rival, Ukraine's former pole vault world record holder Sergey Bubka.

Eriksson warned, however, that the race to replace Lamine Diack, who is stepping down after 16 years as IAAF President, could still be a close one.

"My feeling is that Coe has massive support in Europe, perhaps with the exception of some countries in Eastern Europe," Eriksson told Sveriges Radio. 

"It is more difficult to assess in Africa and Asia, where I feel that Bubka has the upper hand. 

"It will be exciting in Beijing.

"I feel that we have arrived at a turning point for athletics now."

Coe again revealed today how angry he is at the British newspaper the Sunday Times and German broadcaster ARD, who claimed the IAAF had turned a blind eye to hundreds of suspicious blood tests. 

"I have never hidden away from the fact that there are elements of athletics that drift away from the moral framework," he wrote in his column in The Daily Telegraph. 

"The sport has its problems and we face many challenges. 

"But what has so angered us in recent days is the implication that, in some way, athletics and the International Association of Athletics Federations are complicit in encouraging doping.

"Such an assertion has hit us hard and made many people in athletics angry.

"Quite simply, there is nothing in our history that points to such a conclusion being drawn."

Coe has been accused by some critics of using athletics' latest drugs crisis as an opportunity to try to collect votes for his campaign to replace Diack. 

"In less than two weeks I will be standing for the IAAF Presidency but let me be clear that this is not electioneering," he wrote. 

"Whether there is an election or not, I will always come to the defence of my sport when it is being treated unfairly.

"The very fact that I am standing for the Presidency is because I have been in the sport for 45 years and I know that the vast majority of people in the sport have an absolutely non-negotiable stance on drug abuse.

"For us to be portrayed as a sport that plays fast and loose with these ethics is just wrong.

"Any implication that we are deliberately casting a Nelsonian eye over doping is a long way wide of the mark and that is why we have to fight back on this.

"We will fight in the same way we fight every day to chase the cheats out of our sport to protect the vast majority of clean athletes in our sport."

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