Sebastian Coe was elected as the sixth IAAF President at the 50th IAAF Congress in Beijing, China on Wednesday (19).
The voting was as follows (207 IAAF Member Federations cast their votes): Sebastian Coe (GBR) 115 votes, Sergey Bubka (UKR) 92 votes.
Coe, 58, succeeds senegalese Lamine Diack,82 who retired and will now serve as a honorary President after 16 years.
“I am deeply honoured that our sport has placed its trust in me. There is no job I want to do more- nor with greater commitment.I thank Sergey for a thoroughly good campaign. The campaign was fought according to sound judgement of the sport.It is second biggest momentous occasion of my life. I would like to thank you for wise counsel and the generosity of your time,”said Coe soon after his election.
Bubka, the olympic pole vault champion retained his Vice President post as he topped the race with 187 votes alongside Al Hamad Dahlan of Qatar 159, Malboum Kalkaba the Confederation of African President garnering 115 and Cuban Juantorena Danger Alberto 111.
Sergey Bubka has thanked those National Federations who voted for him to continue in his role as IAAF Vice President and pledged his total commitment to the IAAF and athletics family. Bubka received 187 National Federations votes.
“First of all, I would like to congratulate Seb Coe on his campaign, which gave us great opportunities to discuss many challenges of our sport, communicate with our Member Federations, and share our vision for the future of athletics. From the very bottom of my heart, I would like to thank the Member Federations, who voted for my candidacy as IAAF President as well as for my Vice-Presidency role. Thanks a lot to my family and my team who supported and assisted me throughout all these months – we’ve done a fantastic job together.
“I will continue to serve athletics as I’ve done during all my life in any position our Athletics family trusts me to hold. I wish good luck to the new IAAF President and remain committed to the ideas and proposals I delivered throughout my campaign.”
Six Female individual council members were elected they are Stephanie Hightower, Nawal El Moutawakel Anna Riccardi, Pauline Davis-Thompson, Abby Hoffman, Sylvia Barlag while Ahmad Al Kamali, Du Zhaocai, Frank Fredericks, Hiroshi Yokokawa, Antti Pihlakoski, Bernard Amsalem, Mikhail Butov, Adille Sumariwalla and Mohammed Bin Nawaf Al Saud were voted in as the council members.
