African Sports Monthly International Women's Day Special Edition | Page 62

The Beijing World Championships saw the end of an era as Africa’s first ever IAAF chief stepped down to
usher in the reign of what everyone is expecting to be a renaissance of Athletics under new chief Lord
Sebastian Coe of Great Britain.

Former head of the IAAF; Mr. Lamine Diack who fell from grace after admitting to accepting bribes

Sadly, in the closing half of the year it was revealed that former IAAF Chief Lamine Diack (Africa’s first
ever) had been arrested for corruption during his reign at the IAAF as he was charged with accepting
bribes from the Russians. This was indeed bad news for the sport and especially so for Africa as Diack’s
arrest would place a cloud over African leadership at the highest level of sports governance in the world.
National Federations like Kenyan Athletics and the Sierra Leone Athletics Association made headlines as
they tussled with their leadership. In the Kenyan case it got so intense that athletes locked the doors to
the Associations headquarters and in the end the IAAF ended up sanctioning and asking the leadership
to step down. In the case of Sierra Leone, a rift developed between stakeholders of the association with
some siding with a Presidential aspirant and sitting minister of Defense Rtd Major Palor Conteh and the
incumbent Mr. Karim Sesay evolved into a situation that led to open confrontation that resulted in a
physical altercation which caused injuries to the former Secretary General of the Association; Dauda
Sundufu Sowa. The whole saga was eventually settled when the sitting Minister of Defense Mr. Palor
Conteh was informed that he cannot run for the office due to his position within the government and
this led to the eventual re-election of Mr. Karim Sesay and his administration