IAAF President Diack here on a historic visit

By Dinesh WEERAWANSA

It will be a red letter day in Sri Lanka's sports history when the President of the World Athletic governing body Lamine Diack arrives in Colombo today on a three-day official visit.

This will be the first time that a world athletic chief will be visiting Sri Lanka and it will be a great honour for Sri Lanka and a boost for local track and field. During his stay in Sri Lanka, the President of the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) will meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa and several other officials, coaches and athletes. President of the Athletic Association of Sri Lanka (AASL) Major General Palitha Fernando said it will be a great honour for Sri Lanka athletics to host the world President who is due to arrive in Colombo tonight. "It will be a big boost for local athletics and an inspiration for our athletes," he said.

Secretary of the AASL Prema Pinnawale, who has been associating the IAAF chief for nearly two decades, said Diack accepted Sri Lanka's invitation despite a busy schedule. "He wanted to honour Sri Lanka and inspire our athletes as an emerging nation in the world track and field arena.

He heads the largest sports governing body in the world with 213 nations," he said.

IAAF President Diack is due to meet President Rajapaksa at Temple Trees at 12.30 p.m. tomorrow before flying to Diyagama to visit Sri Lanka's newest athletic stadium. The brainchild of AASL chief Fernando, the Rs. 500-million mega project would give Sri Lanka only its second international stadium with a world class track. Major General Fernando said initial work at the new Diyagama International Athletic Stadium has been completed and that they plan to lay the track before the end of this year. The AASL plans to built the stadium in two stages.

The stage one will include the new 400m running track, international class equipments and a junior stadium.

The 75-year-old Senegalese national will address Sri Lanka's national athletes, coaches, junio athletes and officials at the National Olympic House tomorrow evening. All top Sri Lanka national athletes are expected to attend the meeting. Incidentally, it was Diack who presented gold medals to Sri Lanka's new born star Shehan Ambepitiya when he won back to back gold medals at last week's Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune.

Born on June 7, 1933, Diack had been a versatile sportsman during his day, excelling as a long jumper, holding the French-West African record from 1957 to 1960. In 1959, he had cleared 7.63m to emerge French national champion and on the following year, he had a jump of 7.72 to take the French University 'crown'. In his capacity as IAAF President, Diack was nominated an International Olympic Committee Member at the Extraordinary IOC Session on 11 December in 1999 and has held that position todate. A member of the Senegal National Olympic Committee since 1974, Diack had served as the President of the National Olympic Committee of Senegal (CNOS) from 1985 to 2002. A father of 15 children, Diack was elected IAAF President on November 8, 1999 after serving the world body as Senior Vice President from 1991 to 1991. He entered the IAAF in 1976 and served as Vice President until 1991.

He entered politics by becoming the Mayor of Dakar City Council in 1978 and entered Parliament the same year and served for 15 long years. From 1988 to 1983 Diack had been the Senior Vice-President (Deputy Speaker) of the National Assembly of Senegal.