The former head of global track and field, Lamine Diack, told his corruption trial on Thursday he had agreed to delay and stagger bans for ...
The former head of global track and field, Lamine Diack, told his corruption trial on Thursday he had agreed to delay and stagger bans for Russian athletes caught doping for the sake of the sport’s “financial health”.
But Diack, who headed the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for 16 years, denied he had known officials from his federation had directly or indirectly asked Russian athletes for hundreds of thousands of euros to hush up their cases.
Diack, an 87-year-old Senegalese, told a court in Paris it was his decision to delay bans after 23 Russian athletes failed tests in 2011.
“It was mainly for the financial health of the IAAF,” he said.
“The financial health of the IAAF had to be safeguarded and I was prepared to make that compromise.”
Diack has admitted that doping bans were delayed in order to allow Russian athletes to compete in the 2012 London Olympics and the world championships in Moscow the following year.
The aim was to prevent the cases derailing talks with prospective Russian sponsors including state-owned bank VTB and the RTR broadcaster.
Diack, who was once one of the most powerful leaders in Olympic sport, is being tried for corruption, money laundering and breach of trust. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 10...
