Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford believes Sebastian Coe is the right man to take over as International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) president and ensure athletics does not "die a death".

Two-time Olympic 1500 metre champion Coe will stand for election along with legendary Russian pole vaulter Sergey Bubka after long-serving president Lamine Diack announced that he will step down in August following 16 years in the post.

Coe was lavished with praise for the job he did as chair of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games in 2012 and Rutherford hopes his fellow Englishman will be successful in his bid to take the top job in athletics.

Speaking at the launch of Disney’s Aim High initiative, Rutherford said: "I think whoever can come in and shake things up a little bit is going to be the right man and I'm hoping that's Seb Coe.

"Everything he did for the London 2012 Olympics was fantastic and he was one of the main faces behind the scenes organising what was and is the greatest Olympics that have been hosted in the modern age.

"I think he can go in there and make a difference. I just hope he is open to what athletes are saying and listening to it and actually help to try to take athletics forward as feel the people involved at the moment definitely aren't doing that.

"It's not about the athletes, it's not about the coaches, it just generally seems to be about them and that's not going to increase the life span of athletics, it's going to die a death unless we change things so hopefully Seb Coe will be the man for it, I'm backing him to do something good."

While Coe hopes to be toasting an election victory in Beijing in August, Rutherford is aiming to be celebrating in the Chinese capital when he bids to be crowned world champion.

The 28-year-old has won Olympic, Commonwealth and European gold medals and is determined to complete his collection later this year.

He said: "Beijing this year is my goal, every year we have a major championships. 

"We're very lucky be that Commonwealths, Olympics, Europeans, Worlds and for me its the World Championships it's the one medal I don't have, the one title I don't have so everything is geared towards that, now peaking is an interesting thing, you have to stay fit and healthy, and you have to build towards something.

"I can't just turn up after having six months of training and no competition and expect to go and win something like that.

"It's a scheduled competition block, so I'll compete in certain places at certain time, I'll make sure I'm training to certain levels at certain times as well. But that's all monitored by coach and myself and we adapt to things as and when things are changing."