It is with some affection that she is known among us as the Brockweiler, a tribute to her tenacacity and, as the Daily Mail put it, "uncompromising style". 

Friendly but formidable, she has always been a popular and highly regarded member of that burgeoning breed of communicators now employed by virtually every sports organisation to sell and protect their product.

In my experience, these spokespersons range from the good, the bad to the god-awful.

Jackie is one of the good guys and gals and she will be missed, not least of all by Coe, though the good news is that she is to remain with the Monaco-based World Athletics in a new role as director of special operations.

Coe will certainly require her nous and muscle should he decide to run for the Presidency of the International Olympic Committee, as many anticipate, in 2025.

Jackie is a familiar figure in Olympic circles and has been for the past 20 years.

She first came to prominence while working as a communications strategist for a UK public relations company when she stepped in at short notice to become the spokesperson for the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

The then incumbent had suddenly quit during preparations for the event and Jackie did a brilliant job as his replacement.

So much so that when London decided to bid for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, she was a natural choice to join chairman Coe's team, running the media campaign.

In fact, she has worked in tandem with Coe since he forsook actual politics for the equally vexing world of sports politics.

Additionally, she ran her own integrated communications company and was that rarity, a British public relations chief who acted as a conduit rather than a buffer, getting things in to a public domain rather than keeping them out.

With a few notable exceptions, and I would cite as well as Jackie, former IOC spokesperson Giselle Davies, daughter of TV commentator Barry, her successor Mark Adams, and Mike Lee, the London 2012 communications director. 

British sports PRs are by and large a motley crew, especially those employed by football clubs.

Quite a few of them are ex-journalists, poachers turned gamekeepers who did not make it in the newspaper business.

Not some in the United States, where sports PR is very much a professional industry in every respect.  

During my travels, I have always found them to be helpful and accommodating. 

Great characters too, like the late John F.X Condon, who was the long-time publicist for Madison Square Garden in New York.

His brief stint included a multitude of big fights, including the first meeting of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in 1971. 

I recall with some amusement that before the fight began he issued all of us writers with garish red and white baseball cap emblazoned with "Ali-Frasier" and suggested we wear them throughout the evening. 

One of our number, the rather pompous but internationally renowned Peter Wilson of the Daily Mirror, exclaimed: "Good God, John. You don’t really expect us to sit here wearing these, do you?" 

The ever iconic Condon replied: "Well it’s like this Peter but we have an 18,000 capacity crowd and there are another 5,000 outside trying to break the doors down to get in. 

"If they do and there's a riot at ringside the cops will know which heads to hit, and which not to hit." 

All of us, including Wilson, promptly plonked the caps on our heads.

I still have mine and I’m told it's worth a good few bob at an auction when I pass it to my grandchildren!

It was the same John Condon who, at the packed press conference after the fight, spotted singer Diana Ross sitting in the front row. 

"Who are you with, little lady?" he asked her knowing very well who she was. 

"Nobody," she trilled. 

"I’m Diana Ross."

"I know that little lady," he said. 

"I asked which media you were with. 

"It’s media only here little lady - out!" 

And out Ms Ross trooped.

These days I could not envisage such a situation at a UK press conference as so many PRs are star struck by celebrities and would rather accommodate them than representatives of the media.

Another charismatic boxing PR was a New Yorker, Harold Conran. 

Occasionally he would be in the role of a spokesman for Ali - a somewhat superfluous task, you would think. 

At a reception, a few of us were talking with Conran and the name of the Dr Ferdie Pacheco, the Cuban emigre who was his personal physician, cropped up.

Pacheco was also an accomplished artist, sculptor and author. 

Someone remarked that he was "a really talented guy." 

"Yeah," sniffed Conran. 

"Do yourself a favour.

"Just don’t get sick around him."

Don King’s men, the father and son duo of Murray and Bobby Goodman, were also great operators. 

They handled the media arrangements for the "rumble in the jungle" Muhammad Ali-George Foreman fight in Zaire, which was just as well as the original PR.

A local chap had made a bit of a mess of the arrangements. No wonder, as he was eccentric as his name, Tshimpumpu wa Tshimpumpu!

On a personal note, I would like to add that I have found that there are many prominent people, not necessarily in sport, who could do with a really decent PR. 

One of them I encountered was the firebrand Unionist leader Reverend Ian Paisley. 

Some years back when I was covering a sports event in Northern Ireland, I was asked by my paper, who knew I was always keen to write about something other than sport, if I might try to get an interview with Paisley.

I discovered he was due to speak at a rally in a village hall just outside Belfast the following evening, so I duly made my way there, and as I approached the venue I could hear his stentorian tones from a mile away.

Inside the hall I sat at the back until the interval. 

As Paisley sipped his tea, I approached him gingerly, tapped him on the arm, introduced myself and asked if he could spare me a few minutes. 

He wheeled around angrily, nostrils flaring and bellowed into my face.

"Can’t you see I’m on God’s work? Now fuck off!" he said.

I did.