After a sixteen years IAAF presidency, Lamine Diack makes way to Sebastian Coe, newly elected to fill this post. The 82 years old Senegalese, before to get out from the spotlights, wanted, though, to straighten out his thought about the use of illicit substances by the international athletes.
ALMOST EVERYONE CLEAN- After a “hot” month for what concerns the doping, Diack, in the end of the month, will leave the apex of the International Federation to Coe who has already stated his will to abandon the current anti-doping structure in order to create a new one, totally autonomous and detached, so that to assure more cleaning and transparency for the fans and the athletes themselves: a sport, therefore, more trustable and less suspicious. Despite this, Diack defended to the hilt the control system used during the first years of his mandate, declaring to be sure 99% of his athletes are clean.
NOTHING TO LEARN – Extremely in brief , it can be said that Diack, before going away, wanted to defend everything IAAF did during the last 16 years, despite the current doping scandals which lately came out. “Twenty-two years ago we suspended an athlete because he refused to take on the doping test out of a competition”- the Senegalese said in Beijing – “No other federation had ever done this. We exhort for the creation of WADA (worldwide anti-doping agency)”. The ex-president added as well: “We do 3.000 tests each year. The results say that 200 tests are positive while the remaining 2.800 are negative but people would rather to talk only about the 200 positive ones. We don’t have to have anyone teaching us anything from any other sport. We do just what we have to do and we were doing that much before than others. We will keep doing our job as we always did”. Eventually, Diack stated: “We cannot allow our athletes’ performances to be continually doubtful. If some doubts were to arise, it would be the end. We do believe, instead, 99% of our athletes are clean”.
HOPE IN COE – As regards the new president, Diack declares to be confident that he can carry on a good job for the whole athletic. “We have a new elect president and I’m leaving an amazing sport that gifted meof great performances in the last 16 years” he said. “Seb is quite strong and charismatic to face all the accusations they made against the Federation and to prove they are wrong. He loves this sport and I think he will be able to do a great job. Moreover, he knows more about sport than me myself since he was a world champion and a world record holder”.
Photo Getty Images