Ex-head of World Athletics Lamine Diack dies
December 3, 2021
The controversial former president of world athletics Lamine Diack has died in Senegal, aged 88, his family said Friday.
"Yes, I confirm. My uncle Lamine Diack passed away," his niece Awa Diack told The Associated Press.
The Senegalese national was president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), now World Athletics, from 1999 to 2015 after holding several political positions in his home country.
What were the controversies surrounding Lamine Diack?
In September last year, he was convicted in Paris on multiple charges of corruption during his tenure, some related to the Russian doping scandal.
The court found him guilty of covering up the payment of bribes by Russian athletes involved in doping cases.
The scheme squeezed €3.2 million ($3.8 million) in hush money, allowing the athletes, who should have been suspended, to keep competing — including in the 2012 London Olympics.
Diack paid off other IAAF officials to aid with the cover up, and also accepted Russian money to help finance Senegalese leader Macky Sall's 2012 presidential campaign, the court found.
Diack's lawyers had previously said he was in poor health and would die in jail if sentenced.
Despite receiving a 4-year prison term, he was never jailed and remained under house arrest in France and his passport was confiscated.
He was later released after a local soccer club paid a bond of just over $600,000 to help him to return to Senegal.
Who was Lamine Diack?
The conviction marked a spectacular fall from grace for a man who was head of the IAAF for nearly two decades and was an influential figure in the world of Olympic sports.
His son, Papa Massata Diack, who worked as an IAAF marketing consultant, was also convicted and was sentenced to five years in jail in his absence.
French investigators have said that Papa Massata was at the center of a years-long corruption probe spanning Europe, Asia and the Americas, which included the awarding of the 2020 Olympic Games to Tokyo and the 2016 Games to Rio de Janeiro.
Born in Senegal's capital Dakar, Diack attended university in France where he was a champion long-jumper in the 1950s.
Afterward, he coached football in Senegal and helped manage the national team, which allowed him to transition into politics.
Diack was mayor of Dakar from 1978-1980, and later served as senior vice president of Senegal's National Assembly.
mm/rt (AFP, AP, Reuters)