IAAF president happy to intervene in Ja impasse
Published:Monday | August 17, 2009 | 1:38 PM
President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), Lamine Diack says he is happy that the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA) cleared five top runners including Asafa Powell to compete at the World Championships.
Powell, Olympic champions Shelly-Ann Fraser and Melaine Walker, plus Brigitte Foster-Hylton and Shericka Williams, had missed the team mandatory training camp in Nuremberg, Germany.
Their non-appearance prompted the national federation to consider taking them off the team.
However, after the personal intervention of Diack, the JAAAs allowed the athletes, all from the MVP Track Club, to compete.
Diack says he was happy that the JAAAs had listened to him.
The IAAF president further says he was not surprised by Usain Bolt’s world record performance.
He says he came to Berlin expecting Bolt to break the world record of 9.69 he achieved in a gold medal performance in the Beijing Olympics one year ago.
The Jamaican delivered one of the most astonishing performances ever seen in athletics to clock a world record 9.58 seconds to win the gold medal in Berlin yesterday.