Bangladesh is still undecided over choosing between legendary athletes Sergey Bubka and Sebastian Coe—who are vying for the post of president in International Association of Athletics Federations.
The IAAF president election will be held during its congress on Wednesday in Beijing, China, where a total of 214 member organisations are expected to vote.Bangladesh Athletics Federation general secretary Ibrahim Chengis will represent the country in the congress and will vote for the country. BAF officials said they had discussed the matter before Chengis left the country, but could not make any decision.
‘We discussed the matter before he[ Chengis] left but no decision was made,’ BAF joint secretary Tofazzal Hossain told New Age on Monday. He was asked to take the opinion of neighbouring countries and take a common position.’
Bubka or Coe will take the presidency of IAAF, which was ruled by Senegalese Lamine Diack for the last 16 years.
Diack stepped down recently from the president post at the age of 82.
Ukrainian Bubka is 10-time world pole vault champion while British Coe also has strong profile having won Olympic gold medal twice in 1500m race.
Bubka, 51, has been involved with the IAAF since 2001 and has served as vice-president since 2007. He has also been president of Ukraine’s National Olympic Committee in Ukraine since 2005 and a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 1999.
Coe, 58, has also accomplished much in his life since winning his second 1500m gold medal in 1984, going on to become a Conservative politician in Britain and notably overseeing the highly successful London Olympics in 2012.
Sprinter Mezbah Ahmed is the only athlete to get chance to represent Bangladesh in the world meet that will follow the congress.
Mezbah, the fastest man of Bangladesh, will participate in 100-metre sprint heat thanks to IAAF wildcard.
Mezbah, who will leave home today, said he was hoping to improve his best timing of 10.75 seconds that he clocked in 2013 Bangladesh Games.
Mezbah, however, admitted it will not be an easy job as he started his training for the meet only after Eid-ul-Fitr.
‘It’s really tough to beat the best timing as I just got few days to prepare myself,’ he said.
‘But this meet will help me to get some good result in the upcoming South Asian Games.’
-With New Age input
