Lamine Diack, ex IAAF chief convicted of corruption, dies

DAKAR, Senegal — Lamine Diack, the controversial long-time leader of track and field who was convicted of extorting money from athletes and accused of taking bribes in an Olympic hosting vote, has died, his family said Friday. Awa Diack, niece of the former International Olympic Committee member, told The Associated Press that “my uncle Lamine Diack passed away Thursday to Friday night.“ Diack led track and field’s governing body — then known as the IAAF, now World Athletics — for 16 years. “With the death of Lamine Diack, Senegal loses one of its most illustrious sons,” the west African country’s President Macky Sall said via Twitter. Behind the scenes, Diack and his son Papa Massata Diack were involved in wrongdoing that would taint the integrity of their sport and the IOC’s bidding contests and votes to choose Olympic host cities. Even before he became IAAF president, Lamine Diack took irregular cash payments from the Swiss sports marketing agency ISL that was later at the center of a kickbacks scandal that rocked world soccer body FIFA.