STATEMENT FROM IAAF PRESIDENT LAMINE DIACK

Monte-Carlo - As we head towards our annual World Athletics Gala on 23 November, I think this is the right time to celebrate this year of athletics, but in particular, the rightful status of athletics at the summer Olympic Games.

I am looking forward to meeting the IOC President Jacques Rogge, especially as it will give me the opportunity to remind him of the contribution that athletics has made to the Olympic Games throughout its history and particularly to the success of the most recent Olympic Games in Beijing.

Like many people, I was surprised, and said so at the time, to hear Mr Rogge imply that Usain Bolt was showboating and showing a lack of respect for his rivals after his phenomenal World record in the 100m final. We live in a time when Olympic sports are struggling to remain attractive to young people, when we all need to make sport exciting and relevant to them. Since we need to create HEROES that young people identify with, why criticise the behaviour of a young man who is INSTANTLY and completely appealing to young people? Usain’s three gold medals and World records, in a sport where a world record does still mean something, and his exuberance and uninhibited pleasure in victory, helped Usain transcend sport and become, during the Games, a truly global icon and a genuine role model for youngsters who may not find Olympic sport that exciting.

I also have to take issue with more recent comments that the IOC President made to the BBC about the legacy use of the Olympic Stadium in London where he claimed that: “We should avoid leaving white elephants and if the best solution is to transform the track into something else then we would be in favour of that. We had the same situation in Atlanta where the Olympic Stadium was changed into a baseball stadium, which kept an interest for sport.”

As the leader of the World Governing Body for Athletics I think this shows a lack of respect for my sport. As an IOC member myself, I voted for the host city for the 2012 Games in Singapore and, obviously, one of the most compelling arguments in favour of London was the fact that the city desperately needed a world class venue for Athletics. A country like Great Britain, with its magnificent tradition in our sport and a great future ahead of it, surely must be entitled to have a decent athletics stadium in its capital city? A promise was made, and I believe it is totally reasonable to expect that the most important sport of the summer Olympics, which is athletics, gets to live on after the three week period of the Games is over.  Mr Rogge uses the example of Atlanta but for me, and the entire athletics family, the situation in Atlanta is a source of great disappointment.

The fact that the site of magnificent athletics’ performances such as Carl Lewis’ last Olympic Long Jump gold or Michael Johnson’s amazing double at 200m and 400m is no longer able to host athletics – is no longer a source of pride or inspiration for young athletes – but is instead a bargain venue for professional baseball is nothing to be proud of at all. Today, believe it or not, the USA does not have a single venue capable of hosting an IAAF World Championships in athletics. There is simply no stadium – but we have had Olympic Games in Los Angeles and in Atlanta – yet in the end, they were simply handed over to professional sports and as a result, Olympic sports lose out.

I want to take this opportunity to say clearly to my colleague Lord Sebastian Coe, who is Chairman of the London Organising Committee, but also an IAAF Vice-President, that the IAAF totally supports your efforts to find the best solution for a permanent legacy for athletics in the UK. It has never been said that the post-Games’ stadium would be exclusively for athletics.  I am also sure that any number of options for ground-sharing with other sports are currently being considered, in various stadium configurations, but let me finally say that, for the IAAF, destroying the track would be totally unacceptable.

Lamine Diack
IAAF President