Lamine Diack: to step down in August

Two former Olympic Gold medalists – former middle distance runner, Englishman, Sebastian Coe and Pole vault, Ukrainian Sergey Bubka, are in the race to succeed Africa’s long serving president of the International Association of Athletics Federation.

Outgoing president Lamine Diack, 82, was unanimously elected to the post in 1999. He is scheduled to step down in August.

“For the first time we shall have elections for the post,’’ Diack told the AIPS-Africa media team, a copy of which was obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Sunday.

“Well, consensus may not work for now as they have both declared their wish to vie for the post… I don’t know.

“But these two are both my picks, in 2006, when I met colleagues of my generation, who were on the council and I told them I would leave in 2015 and I thought that we needed a new generation of leaders to take over, because most of them were my age mates.

“I told them that Sebastian Coe and Sergey Bubka both are great champions and have been in the council long enough and are well versed in the federation as Vice-Presidents.

“So for now both of them are my picks and I am keenly following their campaigns’’.

He added, however, “If later I have to decide and back one, I will announce my pick on who I think is best of the two and why’’.

Diack noted too, that there was some interest on the IAAF Vice-presidency with many contenders.

According to him, I think it will be good to have one representative from each continent. There is no way for instance Africa can have two.

He said he had encouraged Cameroonian Malboum Kalkaba, the current African Athletic Confederation President and Kenyan Isiaih Kiplagat, who would have to agree to let one candidate go through to represent the African continent.

“I will try and talk to them but they have to sit and agree. Kalkaba is already in the council as IAAF representative and so might want to Kiplagat to be the vice-president.

However, If Kalkaba decides to go ahead and he succeeds, it would be best to look for a successor. “Anyway this is a problem for Africa to resolve. I will only step in if they seek my help’’.

Diack says he will be leaving a financially stable federation with financial reserves of between 65 and 67 million dollars.

“I think I would be proud of the financial situation of the federation because in every situation, we cannot achieve everything,’’ Diack, who would be leaving in August, after more than 15 years in the saddle, told a Special AIPS-Africa Publication, a copy of which was obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

“During my tenure, the IAAF and its marketing partner Dentsu raised over a billion dollars of revenue from TV & sponsors.

“In 2015, the financial reserves will be 65-67 million dollars. I think it’s a big achievement and all the way I have been very successful. I tried to make athletics universal and now athletics is everywhere.”