Lord Coe has made a “non-negotiable” pledge to protect the female category if he becomes president of the International Olympic Committee, arguing that the boxing debacle at this year’s Paris Games – where two fighters won gold medals as women despite a sex test controversy – would never have happened on his watch.

Launching his manifesto for one of the most powerful roles in sport, Coe clearly spells out his credentials on this subject, making it one of his four core commitments to “protect and promote the integrity of women’s sport”. His distinction from his main rivals is that he has already delivered on this promise as president of World Athletics, ensuring that elite competition is restricted exclusively to those who are biologically female.

By contrast, Coe’s two main rivals, Kirsty Coventry and Juan Antonio Samaranch Jnr, were both part of the IOC Executive Board who enabled Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting to become Olympic champions in women’s boxing despite test results revealing the presence of male chromosomes.

“On the female category, for me it was non-negotiable,” Coe said. “If you don’t have clear policies, you end up with where you got to in Paris. The comforting thing for me is that this couldn’t have happened in athletics. Why? We had a policy, and it was discussed, debated and driven by some of the smartest people in sports science and genetics. I wasn’t sitting there in Paris thinking: ‘Oh my goodness, there’s a chance I’ve got three on a rostrum who are going to fall into that crevice.’”

At the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, during his first year as president of World Athletics, Coe did encounter a situation where Caster Semenya and two other athletes with differences in sexual development (DSDs) made up the podium in the women’s 800 metres. But he subsequently introduced a policy where DSD athletes would require a minimum two years’ testosterone suppression to compete in any female race, while banning transgender athletes who had gone through male puberty altogether from international women’s events. “It was always very clear to me,” he said. “Gender cannot trump biology.”

Coe’s stance on this issue cements his status as the change candidate. While the IOC is beholden to ideology rather than science, believing that womanhood can be determined solely by passport status, he writes in his manifesto: “I will advocate for clear, science-based policies that safeguard the female category. We will work closely with world-leading medical and educational institutions to increase research into female health, performance and exercise physiology. Women’s sport is at a critical juncture. We must navigate this with sensitivity and resolve to ensure current and future generations of women choose sport.”

At 68, he makes no secret that he would regard his election as IOC president as the crowning glory of his career. He is self-evidently the most qualified candidate in the seven-person race, as a double Olympic champion over 1500 metres and the orchestrator of London 2012, among the most successful Games ever staged. Indeed, he holds the briefing for his manifesto launch on the top floor of the Turing Building in Stratford, overlooking the Olympic Park that he helped transform from urban wasteland.

“It’s the dance I just couldn’t sit out,” he explained. “This park is probably the best demonstration of anything that I’ve delivered, using the extraordinary power of the Olympic movement. None of this would have happened in that timeframe – building a new city inside an old city in seven years, doing it from a standing start and leaving 50,000 permanent jobs and three universities. You can see from this window what is here, and that is the power of the movement. And that, every day, if I am privileged to do this job, is what I will be squeezing every ounce of.”

Where Coe could rattle cages is in his strength of feeling about shaking up the IOC. “There’s too much power in the hands of too few people,” he said. When it was suggested that this might ruffle the feathers of senior executives, he shrugged: “I’m sorry, it’s the way I see it. The decision-making processes aren’t working. They’re out of balance, and the fences need to be taken down. Modern organisations cannot be run any longer as command and control.”

He is running on a platform to rule as a different type of president. Where outgoing IOC chief Thomas Bach has often appeared aloof and autocratic, and where Gianni Infantino has just awarded two World Cups without even giving a press conference, Coe insisted his style of leadership would be more collaborative. “I just want to open the windows,” he said. “This is not complicated, but you need sport that is free, fair, open, and you’re going to have to make tough decisions about integrity.” Coe will present his proposals to the IOC in Lausanne on Jan 30, with Bach’s successor scheduled to be confirmed in Greece in late March.