- Title: IAAF-ELECTION/BUBKA PROFILE Profile of IAAF President contender Sergey Bubka
- Date: 15th August 2015
- Summary: CAMERAMAN KIEV, UKRAINE (FILE 2012) (REUTERS) BUBKA AT MEETING OF UKRAINE OLYMPIC COMMITTEE BUBKA SPEAKING
- Embargoed: 30th August 2015 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Brazil
- Country: Brazil
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA2K4CLXM1CGKKJYH6MDSMIGJT0
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS CONVERTED 4:3 MATERIAL
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) will elect a new president on August 19 from two candidates: former Olympic champions Sebastian Coe and Sergei Bubka.
The presidential vote, believed to be the first in IAAF history as previous leaders were nominated and accepted, will be held against a backdrop of controversy after a damning report by Britain's Sunday Times newspaper and German broadcaster ARD/WDR accused the IAAF of failing to investigate hundreds of what they called "suspicious" drugs tests between 2001 and 2012.
The IAAF said the allegations were sensationalist and confusing because the results referred to were not positive tests, while the newspaper and broadcaster acknowledged their evaluation of the data did not prove doping.
Ukrainian pole-vaulting legend Sergei Bubka said on Thursday (August 13) that doping cases in athletics need to be dealt with quicker and cheats punished with tougher sanctions.
We need to see how to speed up the process between cases and decisions," he told Reuters in an interview. "That needs to be quicker.
"We need to be looking at what can be improved, tougher sanctions, legal challenges," added Bubka, who has long favoured tougher sanctions for doping offenders past the current two years with his sport's credibility hit with every positive test.
Former Olympic champion pole vaulter Bubka is running for world athletics governing body's presidency and goes up against Sebastian Coe in next week's vote in Beijing ahead of the world championships.
Bubka said he had talked with the World Anti-doping Agency about the need to boost cooperation, improve the overall system of testing and processing cases and the need for more funds.
Bubka, who won an Olympic gold medal, six consecutive world championship titles and set 35 world records, wants to lead the International Association of Athletics Federations when President Lamine Diack steps down later this year.
Fellow IAAF vice-president Coe, a double 1,500m Olympic champion and the chief organiser of the London 2012 Olympics, announced his candidacy late last year.
"From the days when I played in the streets of my homeland Ukraine to winning gold medals at world athletics championships, my life has always been about sport," Bubka said at the time of his announcement in January.
Bubka, one of the biggest names in athletics, has carved out a successful sports administration career in recent years after dominating his sport for more than a decade in the 1980s and 1990s.
The 51-year-old is head of his country's Olympic Committee as well as an International Olympic Committee member, who in 2013 made an unsuccessful run for the IOC presidency.
Back when Bubka and Coe were competing, athletics attracted huge TV audiences and often dominated the back pages of newspapers around the world.
Thirty years on, the sport is fighting to make a connection with the next generation.
A dire shortage of recognisable personalities, an ageing audience, a confusing calendar, a continuing struggle to attract interest in the United States and the dark shadow of doping has left athletics fighting for a foothold in an ever-more crowded sporting and leisure landscape. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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