Lamine Diack
Sebastian Coe was today elected the new President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), beating his only rival Sergey Bubka.
Britain’s double Olympic 1500 metres champion polled 115 votes to 92 for Bubka, Ukraine’s former world record holder for the pole vault.
Coe, the former chairman of London 2012, will succeed Senegalese Lamine Diack, who is stepping down from the role after 16 years, at the conclusion of the IAAF World Championships, due to start in the Chinese capital Beijing on Saturday (August 22).
He is also expected now to be appointed as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a role he is likely to take up just before next year’s Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Bubka will serve as Coe’s senior vice-president after receiving 187 votes in the election that followed.
Thirty-four years to the day since he set a world record for the mile in Zurich, Coe claimed his election was the “second most momentous moment in my life” behind the birth of his children.
“These words are not in any way rehearsed, first I would like to thank Sergey for a thoroughly good and long campaign,” Coe added.
“I think it has been in the best traditions of everything we both believe, we have fought according to sound judgement throughout.
“I’d like to thank President Diack for the many personal kindnesses both public and private and to you, the Member Federations, for placing your trust in me today.”
Coe’s election came at the end of a marathon campaign during which he claimed to have travelled 700,000 kilometres – the equivalent of four times around the world – and met a representative from all 214 countries who are members of the IAAF.
“There is no task in my life for which I have been better …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
