Jean Gracia has been named interim chief executive officer/general secretary of the scandal-hit IAAF. The 60-year-old Frenchman will hold the post until a permanent appointment is made later this year.
The IAAF president, Sebastian Coe, who last week insisted he has not considered stepping down from his position at the head of the beleaguered organisation, said: “Jean Gracia, who is a former general secretary of the French Federation and a current vice-president of European Athletics, brings vast experience and will assist the continued smooth running of the association in the interim.
“He will act as the focal point for all our member federations and partners, and support me with work involving the executive board and council.”
Earlier this month, the IAAF was plunged into further crisis after three of athletics’ leading figures – Papa Massata Diack, the son of the former IAAF president Lamine Diack and a marketing consultant for the organisation, former Russian athletics federation (Araf) president and IAAF treasurer Valentin Balakhnichev, and Alexei Melnikov, a senior Araf coach – were handed lifetime bans by the IAAF’s ethics commission for blackmailing athletes and covering up positive drugs tests.
Lamine Diack, Lord Coe’s predecessor as president, is the subject of a police investigation over claims he took money to cover up positive tests by Russian athletes.
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